Conclusion

This project has provided a lot of scope to learn new and build upon old subject areas. I have learnt a great deal about the rigging pipeline and have seen the practical situation in which it is faced and who I would be working with. I also was able to focus in on the technical nitty gritty that is fundamental in creating a usable rig.

After rigging came the special effects. I established a new method of creating realistic glass debris and simulated them with rigid body dynamics and fields.

Finally I increased my knowledge of particle attributes and developed interesting effects dependent on their life spans, influencing color, size and luminosity. I applied myself in all of the above tasks and managed to do them all to a decent level.

However, overall I would say that the most important lesson learnt from this project was the great team work that finished the project to the Original Deadline and have managed to do outstanding work together.

The Final Video...

Now with all the work animated, lit, rendered and composited, we have finally composited the final product of 10 weeks of project work.

Enjoy!!

 :-)

Canary Wharf Comet: Shatter Effect

After working with greg for the initial set up for the comet, we decided that we would be more efficient if he continued tweaking that effect whilst I moved on to working on the shatter effects of the building.

I decided to carry on experimenting with "shatter modeling" as I had previously did for the last shatters. By modeling and extracting parts of the building I managed to create a similar effect to the last shatter effects.

Here is the progression my Canary wharf shatter.






















This effect coupled with the work done by Greg could now be combined to show the final result in the final film.

Canary Wharf Comet: Particles

Now we have entered the last stage of the project. With the majority of the work done and now entering the final parts of rendering, the last major effect still remained although one of the first scenes to feature into the film. This shot comprises canary wharf being showered by meteors and eventually the tower being hit by a comet.

My and Greg teamed together to work on this scene.

Having done some research into mayas fluid examples, there turned out to be an import that could have been used as the final project. On discussing this with Greg, we eventually decided that it would be better for us to create our own custom made comet trail, but we still had a back up should that have failed.

We decided to begin working together on the comet trail. With much experimentation we managed to find and tweak the necessary attributes that made a smokey effect. We then needed to experiment with particle lifetime expressions.

We also began uncovering many attributes that are not readily available in the attribute editor. I made a set of experiments to find out how to manipulate certain attributes.

Here are the results of some of my experiments.

In the above examples I established that attributes such as "Life Colour". I managed to provide ideas on particle emmisions.

I also experimented with lifetime opacity and sphere size (for ember styled particles)

Atrium Entrance Shatter Effect Part 1

Finishing the last shot sucessfully gave me a certainty in my methodology. I was able to use identical technques that i had created and adopted from the previous shot to use it on the atrium smash shot.

Again I created the geometry by extruding a planar circle (originally a cylinder cap). I customized the shatter pattern using a similar method and continued on with the simulation by using rigid body dynamics with fields.

Here is the progression of the atrium scene.

Render Room Smash Effect Part 3

Now that i was pleased with the overall effect of the shattered glass, it was now an essential part of the pipeline to use the work that I had done and pass it on to the next person. By deleting all of the unnecessary objects in my scene, I was able to create a file that could concisely be imported into the the scene for someone else to work with it.

Here are a few playblasts of the shattering glass effects by themselves.








I also find that viewing this effect in the previous way is a good way to analyze the dynamic simulation. One is able to focus in on any anomalies, especially important when the effect appears to look strange.

Now the shot was ready to be lit, rendered and composited.

Render Room Smash Effect Part 2

The second half of the render room smash scene is that once the alien has knocked his head on the glass, he would eventually break through the wall.

As mentioned in the previous post I carried out a number of trials that led me on closer and closer to the desired effect.

Here are a sequence of videos that show the progression of my shatter tests.