Final Presentation

Here is my final presentation, uploaded to Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttuZpy0pgeg.

In it I give a basic overview of the project, before covering the changes I made to the cinematic throughout the the 12 weeks, focusing mainly on the camera shots, before going into detail about the different areas which I was attempting to learn as part of this project.

Rule Of Thirds

After the alpha presentation, I was much happier with the camera shots in the cinematic. However, after we had a lecture about the rule of thirds, I decided that I would try and include this in some shots. Whilst I am personally sceptical as to whether the rule of thirds actually makes any difference, I decided that it was worth including as it may still make the cinematic more appealing to others. Below I have included screenshots from my cinematic, with the final camera placements, which show all the areas where I have tried to line items up to the rule of thirds grid.

In the first shot, the bottom two points on the grid are lined up with the white lines which mark the edge of the race track.

Where the camera comes to rest, the two right points line up with the top and bottom of the barrier. The top and bottom of edges of the barrier, also create two lines which point towards the area where the car appears from.

Here, I’ve aligned the front tire perfectly between the two horizontal lines.

The second shot of the car has the side of the car on the bottom left point, and the top of the car lining up with the top line.

In the final shot, the end of the track sits on the bottom line. The point of this is that hopefully, this will draw the eye towards the car as it exits the scene.

Foliage

One of main new areas which I chose to look at for this project was foliage. The main foliage I needed were trees, as these feature heavily in my environment. If there is time towards the end of this project, I would also like to create a bush and some grass to line the track, however these are by no means essential.

My first attempts at creating a tree didn’t work very well. The leaves on the tree didn’t seem to fit right, and didn’t make the top of the tree look dense enough to be real. I realised that this was because the leaf planes I had created to flat and uniformly shaped which meant they created an unnaturally shaped tree. To help fix this problem, I looked at a few example of tree models online.

At looking at these I modelled a new leaf plane, which was more curved and unevenly shaped. I also created two smaller variants, each of which has a slightly different layout of leaves on it. The new version of the tree which I created using the improved leaf planes looked much better. The curved leaf planes gave the tree the volume which the first version had been lacking, making it look much nicer.  The only problem I did have was placing the leaf planes in a way which gave the tree a realistic shape.  Because of the way I had modelled the leaf planes, my first attempts at the tree ended up looking too spherical. To counteract this, I took some of the smaller pieces and placed these near perpendicular to the larger leaf planes. After a few attempts placing, repositioning and then adding more of these I finally managed to break up the outline of the tree enough to make it look more natural.

 

The biggest issue I found was getting the leaves on the tree to light correctly. Each leaf plane was only lit on one side, and they were all lit individually rather than in a way that was consistent to each other. Eventually, I was able to find a solution online. The fix involved creating half a sphere and stretching it to cover the whole tree. Next I selected the sphere, followed by the tree. Then by using transfer attributes, you can make the tree light based off of the normals of the sphere. This make the leaves light as a single mass, giving them a more uniform appearance.

Overall I pretty pleased with the tree I created, and was happy with the way it looked when I put it in the UE4 scene. Unfortunately, the tree was the only piece of foliage which I had time to create for this project. If I had more time to work on this project, or was to ever go back to it I would also look at creating some bushes and some grass which would like the edge of the track.

Alpha Presentation and Blockout Feedback

In week 8, we did our alpha presentations, which featured the cinematic at alpha stage, which can be viewed here, https://youtu.be/sTVpPGdMo_0.

The main work between the blockout and the alpha presentations was the modelling work on both the car, and the track. By the alpha presentation, I had finished modelling the majority of the props for the track, with only models that needed finishing being a couple of signs. At this stage I also had about half most of the textures completed for the environment. The texture would which was remaining were the on a couple of the barriers, the signs and a few tweaks to the texture on the track itself. Up to the alpha stage, the majority of the time I’d spent modelling was focused on the environment. I had decided that the best way of organising my time was to get the majority of the environment work out of the way, so that I spend as much time as possible towards the end on the car. Up to alpha I had put some more time into the car, further refining the overall shape of the car, as well as modelling the wheel, and some other details, such as the spoiler and rear of the car. However, as you can see in the video, I hadn’t yet created a texture for it.

One of the main pieces of feedback I received from my blockout presentation was the in the cinematic, I didn’t show enough of the car. The blockout presentation contains a lot of shots of the track, panning across the chicane section three times. When the car is eventually shown, there are only two shots of it and neither of them shows the car particularly close up. Because the car isn’t shown close enough, or for enough time, the detail on it won’t be shown off well.

Based on this feedback, I completely reworked the cameras for the alpha version of the cinematic. I cut out most of the shots of the track at the beginning, leaving a single camera shot which moves along the track, shows off the chicane and then comes to rest on the side of the track. I also improved the camera shots as the car passes through the chicane. I added two cameras, which simply track the car as it passes through the chicane. These improved cameras are much smoother, as rather than animating them to turn; I set them to just follow the car mesh. They also give a much better view of the car. I also created three new cameras on the car itself. Two of these are facing forward, one on the side and one on top, and the third looking backwards at the spoiler. These three cameras help to show off some of the detail on the car, but also provide a good sense of speed as the environment is seen rushing past the car.

Another piece of feedback I received from the blockout presentation was that my original concept, of making a night scene, would take away from the actual modelling work. Because of this, I decided to change the scene to more of an evening scene. By adding more sunlight into the scene, it lit up both the track and the car better, which showed much more detailed that would otherwise have been visible. By adding sunlight to the scene, it also meant some really nice shadows were created where the sun shines through the trees. These shadows look really good both on the track, and on the car as it passed by the trees.

The mains things which I have left to do before the final presentation are to finish the last textures in the environment, and then to work on the car. The car needs a lot of modelling work, before I am then able to UV map it, before finally creating the texture for it. There are also I couple of things which I would like to look at including if there is time towards the end. These are visual effects and the creation of more foliage, however, these will only be looked at if there is enough time available once the modelling work is completed.

Blockout and Planning

In week three, we had to present a brief 5 minute presentation focused on the concept we had chosen for the project, the initial blockout of the cinematic and a basic plan looking forward at what needs to be done.

At this point I have put together a basic blockout of the main features of the environment, as well as an initial blockout of the car. I also created a first version of the cinematic (found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x67auETcp9Q). It flies along the track, gives a view of the chicane section from above before resting low on the track. At the this, the car drives along the track and past the camera, which then cuts to a different camera showing the car driving through the rest of the scene. After presenting this, the main piece of feedback which I received in regards to the cinematic from a number of people was that I didn't show enough of the car. I completely agree with these comments so when it comes to setting up the camera shots for the final version of the cinematic I will massively cut down the time spent showing just the track, to allow for a much longer series of shots of the car. I will also vary the camera shots much more so as to include shots possibly on the car itself as well as those from the side of the track.

One of the reasons I chose this as my A3D project is that it gives me a chance to look at several areas which I don't currently have any experience of. The main one is subdivision modelling, which is how I will attempt to model the car. I will also be looking at modelling various bit of foliage, including trees, bushes and grass to fill the environment. Another integral part of the scene which I will need to look into is the use of lighting, more specifically the dynamic lighting of the car headlights. To make the scene look as good as possible, I will need to ensure that everything in the scene lights correctly, casts accurate shadows and is optimised enough so that it runs smoothly. These are the things which I'd like to have mostly done by the alpha presentation. However, some of this may have to put back until after alpha due to time constraints.

There are also a few things which I would like to research how to create and then include in my cinematic, that will only be looked at towards the end of the project, time allowing. I would like to look into visual effect for the car, namely flames coming from the exhausts, glowing brake discs and sparks. I would also like to look into audio effects with the main one being the engine noise of the car, ideally simulating the Doppler effect. All of these effects would add massively to the cinematic but as they aren't vital I won't be looking at them for some time, if at all.

Advanced 3D Graphics Introduction

The aim of the Advanced 3D module is to create a model based on something which inspires you, with the final piece being a cinematic lasting roughly a minute.

From my Advanced 3D Graphics project, I have decided that I will model a section of racetrack and a car which will drive through the scene. The track section will be based off of the Mulsanne Straight of the Circuit de la Sarthe in France. The area I will focus on the section of the straight before and including the first chicane. I will attempt to roughly recreate this area from photos and footage of the actual location, however I will make changes such as removing some objects from the areas as well as likely adding others to increase the interest in the scene. I will set the scene at night, the idea being that the majority of the light in the scene will be from the headlights of the car driving through. While I think this would make the scene incredibly atmospheric, I do think that having so little light may take away from the actual models in the environment and the model of the car. As such I will look at either changing to the time of day to twilight or adding spotlight on the sides of the track, just to try and show more detail in the scene. The car which I have chosen to model is a Porsche 962, a car which raced at the track in 1987 and 1988. Along with the headlights on the car, I will also aim to add other visual effects too it, including glowing brake disks, small bursts of fire coming from the exhausts and brake lights.

The plan for the final cinematic is that it will begin with a brief flyover of the track before the camera then moves down low to the track. At this point the car will drive into the scene and past the camera. The camera will then cut to a different view showing the car more clearly as it enters and then exits the corner. Hopefully I should be able to create a basic block out and then first version of the cinematic by next week.

I have chosen this as my project because it will give me a chance to research a range of different areas which I previously haven't had a chance to look at. This includes dynamic lighting, visual effects, foliage and most importantly sub division modelling on the car. This project will also allow me to work at the two areas of 3D modelling which I have the most interest in going into in the future, environment/prop and vehicle modelling. While I would love to go into the industry as a vehicle artist, I'm not yet confident in my own vehicle modelling skills so this project should give me a much clearer idea of whether it is worth me pursuing vehicle modelling or whether I should instead aim to specialise in environment and prop modelling.