Thank you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5_VEc5VGu4
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Our final video
We posted this on youtube for all to enjoy.
Thank you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5_VEc5VGu4
Thank you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5_VEc5VGu4
Editing and Finishing off
Once we had all rendered our clips out in 1080/720 HD we compiled them into Adobe Premier Pro. In here we placed the clips together and started to put in some transitions like we studied at the start. We wanted to create a bit of a storyline in a way with the animation. We didn't want to just place all the clips randomly together, so we put the majority of the beach and coastal ones together at the start for a peaceful entrance, and then slight change into different scenery until speeding up at the end with the more action shots of the spitfire, train and car.
This was coming along nicely and we decided for no sound effects and just a song over the top. This combination of a good song and visuals will keep the audience engaged in the entire video. Finding a a suitable song was very difficult with our time scale we had left. Myself I have a song which I suggested at the start which was our back up, and we where all a little unsure. But after placing it into Premier and playing it with the visuals, we moved some clips around so that the sound complimented the video and it really worked well. We made some transitions in the clips match the audio and fast paced videos with the back of the track that had a fast beat. By this time we all loved the combination of an uplifting track, and our renders panning through.
I am very very happy with how the whole team worked, we all pulled together along the same path and all knew what to do to achieve the same result. If I was to do this again, I think I may not try to bit more than I can chew, as I set myself many hard tasks for the deadlines of this. I made 7 scenes in total by myself, all of which I am equally happy with as I put in a massive amount of my own time into this project. Purely because I enjoyed modelling the beauty of Essex, and my enjoyment using 3DsMax
Anglia Ruskin Buildings
I decided to model part of our university, having such wonderfuly architectured buildings I though it fitting to be amounts things that we are proud of in essex. I took some reference photos and got to work modeling the buildings by eye.
As I started modeling these for our last concept part of it was already there for me to use that I modeled before.
I used a rectangle block and made it have a humber number of iterations, so I had a basse to start with for modeling the windows and indentations on the buildings. This took some time to get the buildings looking accurate, I used the same technique for the windows I used for the car by using the bevel tool to create the frame.
I did spend a long time selecting the many different polygons and giving then certain Material ID's for the complex materialising.
Windows
Paneling
Paint
Frames
Glass
Roof
Wood
Bricks
I modeld all of the landpost aswell as I thought It would be great to have them light up the scene in a dusky scene.. I made the lamps have a clear lens and placed a directional light into it and placed the target on the path. To make the lights soon like they are giving off light into the air in the eveing, I added a volume light. This creates a very subtle fog/smoke in the beam of the light, it helps to create great atmoshperes and I am very happy with it in this scene.
To add all the little touches I even made the little sapling tree that is outside the Marconi building, I converted it into an editable poly and made the suporting legs for it inside the shape.
Here shows me adjusting the settings for the volume light.
I used a soft selection on the ground to create an organic look to the mound and surronding grass.
I then lastly animated the camera going down the path of the uni, I did this by moveing the keyframes along and moving the camera and setting more keyframes to alow the smooth transition from point point. I also used a main omni light in the back ground to create realistic world shadows on all the objects.
I do really like this render, alot of atmosphere, and I hope I did the university proud by modeling its buildings well enough.
As I started modeling these for our last concept part of it was already there for me to use that I modeled before.
I used a rectangle block and made it have a humber number of iterations, so I had a basse to start with for modeling the windows and indentations on the buildings. This took some time to get the buildings looking accurate, I used the same technique for the windows I used for the car by using the bevel tool to create the frame.
I did spend a long time selecting the many different polygons and giving then certain Material ID's for the complex materialising.
Windows
Paneling
Paint
Frames
Glass
Roof
Wood
Bricks
I modeld all of the landpost aswell as I thought It would be great to have them light up the scene in a dusky scene.. I made the lamps have a clear lens and placed a directional light into it and placed the target on the path. To make the lights soon like they are giving off light into the air in the eveing, I added a volume light. This creates a very subtle fog/smoke in the beam of the light, it helps to create great atmoshperes and I am very happy with it in this scene.
To add all the little touches I even made the little sapling tree that is outside the Marconi building, I converted it into an editable poly and made the suporting legs for it inside the shape.
Here shows me adjusting the settings for the volume light.
I used a soft selection on the ground to create an organic look to the mound and surronding grass.
I then lastly animated the camera going down the path of the uni, I did this by moveing the keyframes along and moving the camera and setting more keyframes to alow the smooth transition from point point. I also used a main omni light in the back ground to create realistic world shadows on all the objects.
I do really like this render, alot of atmosphere, and I hope I did the university proud by modeling its buildings well enough.
Shoeburyness beach
This is the photo that inspired me to model this scene, I really loved its relaxing appeal and creation of open spaces that may no be so well know in Essex. My aim was to almost replicate this exact photo but in 3d, I am aiming for a high level of render quality and realism.
I started by modeling the walkway and wave breaker from cubes materialised with a good wood grain effect with the bitmap bump over the top. I made the cubes editable, and used the soft selection to make them look different to one another, organic also and worn. I made the metal part of the breaker in the same way and used a rust bitmap with a cellular bump on it.
I wanted to create a realised foreground and sand, as often just bitmap images look quite poor and lifeless. So I decided to model pebbles and stones from cylinders, changing their shape and making them flatter, rounder etc. I was unsure of how to materialise these, as just a gradient may not work so well, I found an image of a sunset which mainly consisted of browns and oranges with small highlights in areas, I tried it on the pebbles and it work perfectly.
Here shows the organic shaped wooden legs of the breaker, and the metal bars that I modeled all from eye from the above photo of Shoeburyness Beach.
The bitmap gives good colour variance when wrapped around the sphere.
I started to copy and past all of the wooden legs and also rotated them and spun them around, upside down etc to get even more varience to the scene. I also made a sandy beach under the pebbels, which has a bump map over it aswell. You can see that I made the plan an editable poly, so I could make the sand look like it has built up in ares of the environment.
I burried part of the walkway into the sand like is shown in the photo at the start of this post.
Positioning the pebbels was very time consuming, as I made the sand very organic and uneven I had to lower each pebble by hand and eye into the right place sticking out of the sand.
To create more perspective, I made the far away legs alot smaller. I did this so I didnt have to create more to get the depth of feild, if I did that render time would have been dramatical increased.
I also made the legsa and metal work along this direction narrower aswell to create more perspective.
I added two water planes into this scene, one for close in at the shore and the other the the rest of the sea. The reason fo rdoing this is that the water is calmer at the shore, so I wanted to replicate this as I am aiming for this scene to be as accurate as possible. I used a bump on the material of "Noise" I animated this also over 300 frames, chaning the "Phase" up to 3.0.
Again I added the lens effect "Glow" as in the other scenes. This especial works well over water as the water has "Rraytraced" reflections on it. I placed the camera in the similar position to that in the referenc photo.
I used the keyframes to move the camrea and animate it moving across the scene, whilst the water is rippling also.
Here is what the veiw port shows through the camera, almost complete with foreground lighting finished aswell to bring abit more detail into the woodm stones and sand.
Here is a finished render, you can see here the similarity between the reference image. The still water at the front is visible, and I feel it gives this scene that edge towards a photographic render. I am very pleased with this scene, I did spend a large amount of time on the modeling, and just as long on the lighting.
Maldon on the mud
Maldon is a very special place in Essex, its well known for its unusal mudy tidal estuarys where you can see boats and ships beached as the tide oes out. I wanted to model this as I had a feeling this would create some great atmospheres, and an atractive scene.
I used a plane and for the material I actualy used a "Mould" image, as It looked like the swirls in mud. I raised the specular level up high to create a shiny wet look to the material.
Next I added water to the scene by using a plane, that I materialsed with animated "Noise" bump. I also added a raytarced reflection, which will reflcet the background that I will put in. I made the colour of that material a muddy brown, as the water at maldon is exactly that.
I used this other plane on an angle to create the skyline and otherside of the water. I applied a gold "Chrome" affect to it, that worked really well (Without Specular level) as it had layers to show distance of the horizon and also it has the correct colours for the scene.
I took the plank from the Burnham scene and added it as a jetty in the mud, I used the same materials as before as they work really well. I placed them into the mud and moved the mud plane up into i so it looks like muds up against the wood.
I made another boat from the shell of the original one. I tried to make it look like another large ship by giving it diferent masts, an upper deack and wheel house.
Here I am putting together what I have done so far and preparing for the lighting and cameras. I place the ships where I want them whilts looking through a camera that I set up in the correct position. I try to stage my renders as you would when taking a photo, with close, midground and backgroud infomation to take in or objects to look at.
I used a few Omni Lights in this scene, I applied a lens effect to the main light sorce and placed it up in the clouds of my background. This lens affect has the ability to glow like a sun or buld, I very much like using these on landscape renders as it really adds atmosphere into the staging. I colourised the ight to match the clouds and scene and also the glow itself. I used raytraced shadows to create a nice detailed shadow map around then scene of all the models.
Here is a final still render of the scene, you can see the glowing sun, the reflective mud and the way the boats sit in the mud itself. Although the water is coloured brown, it still reflects the blue of the sky which is exactly what I wanted, as when the water was coloured blue it was too bright and looked like a swimming pool.
I made the camera pan to the right using the keyframes and selecting the lens of the camera I wanted aswell to fil the veiwfinder perectly. I made some of the boats rock slightly in the water, aswell as animating the water itself. I achive this by changing the phase on the "Noise" bump of the material, when timed correctly this water will ripple very calmly and realisticaly.
I used a plane and for the material I actualy used a "Mould" image, as It looked like the swirls in mud. I raised the specular level up high to create a shiny wet look to the material.
Next I added water to the scene by using a plane, that I materialsed with animated "Noise" bump. I also added a raytarced reflection, which will reflcet the background that I will put in. I made the colour of that material a muddy brown, as the water at maldon is exactly that.
I used this other plane on an angle to create the skyline and otherside of the water. I applied a gold "Chrome" affect to it, that worked really well (Without Specular level) as it had layers to show distance of the horizon and also it has the correct colours for the scene.
I took the plank from the Burnham scene and added it as a jetty in the mud, I used the same materials as before as they work really well. I placed them into the mud and moved the mud plane up into i so it looks like muds up against the wood.
I made another boat from the shell of the original one. I tried to make it look like another large ship by giving it diferent masts, an upper deack and wheel house.
Here I am putting together what I have done so far and preparing for the lighting and cameras. I place the ships where I want them whilts looking through a camera that I set up in the correct position. I try to stage my renders as you would when taking a photo, with close, midground and backgroud infomation to take in or objects to look at.
I used a few Omni Lights in this scene, I applied a lens effect to the main light sorce and placed it up in the clouds of my background. This lens affect has the ability to glow like a sun or buld, I very much like using these on landscape renders as it really adds atmosphere into the staging. I colourised the ight to match the clouds and scene and also the glow itself. I used raytraced shadows to create a nice detailed shadow map around then scene of all the models.
Here is a final still render of the scene, you can see the glowing sun, the reflective mud and the way the boats sit in the mud itself. Although the water is coloured brown, it still reflects the blue of the sky which is exactly what I wanted, as when the water was coloured blue it was too bright and looked like a swimming pool.
I made the camera pan to the right using the keyframes and selecting the lens of the camera I wanted aswell to fil the veiwfinder perectly. I made some of the boats rock slightly in the water, aswell as animating the water itself. I achive this by changing the phase on the "Noise" bump of the material, when timed correctly this water will ripple very calmly and realisticaly.
Danbury Field
I decided to create a simple field in 3ds max, as I thought not many people would ass this in. I thought is would fit in well with the beauty of Essex theme, as we wanted our clips to be fairly short and sweet I thought it would work well.
I used a stock foliage part that comes with 3ds max, this I then turned into an editable poly so I could manipulate it and change it. I took away all of the access think leaves at the bottom and left the stalks and blossoming tops. I pulled and stretched this also so that it was a little different to the standard object
I selected parts of the plant to make different polygons have different ID's, I did this so I can texture the plant with more than one colour or map. I selected the flowers as one ID, the stalk as another. I used a GRASS Bitmap for the green on the stalk, i used this as it has many variants and variation in colour apposed to using just a straight green from the colour picker.
For the flower I used a Gradient Ramp colour, ranging from white to yellow and also a darker shade of yellow. This will keep the pattern different on each petal, creating a very nice finish.
To create the field I copy and pasted the plant, rotating it and keeping it having some variance. I used a simple dirt texture for the ground, and an image of Danbury skyline for the background.
I placed a panning camera in the shot, I spread the key frames from moving the camera wide apart. So that the movement was very slow and steady, panning close to the field.
I used 3 Omni lights in this scene, one main source of light, and 2 others close in front of the camera to light up the rape crop.
This bellow shows a final render of the field, I'm very happy with this simple modelling, the textures on the plant, and its flowers has good variance and looks almost photographic.
I used a stock foliage part that comes with 3ds max, this I then turned into an editable poly so I could manipulate it and change it. I took away all of the access think leaves at the bottom and left the stalks and blossoming tops. I pulled and stretched this also so that it was a little different to the standard object
I selected parts of the plant to make different polygons have different ID's, I did this so I can texture the plant with more than one colour or map. I selected the flowers as one ID, the stalk as another. I used a GRASS Bitmap for the green on the stalk, i used this as it has many variants and variation in colour apposed to using just a straight green from the colour picker.
For the flower I used a Gradient Ramp colour, ranging from white to yellow and also a darker shade of yellow. This will keep the pattern different on each petal, creating a very nice finish.
To create the field I copy and pasted the plant, rotating it and keeping it having some variance. I used a simple dirt texture for the ground, and an image of Danbury skyline for the background.
I placed a panning camera in the shot, I spread the key frames from moving the camera wide apart. So that the movement was very slow and steady, panning close to the field.
I used 3 Omni lights in this scene, one main source of light, and 2 others close in front of the camera to light up the rape crop.
This bellow shows a final render of the field, I'm very happy with this simple modelling, the textures on the plant, and its flowers has good variance and looks almost photographic.
Modeling and Animating the car
Firstly I started by finding the car that I want to model, I chose an car that is very popular in the scene which is an import from Japan. I managed to find after a long time looking some basic blueprint plans of the vehicle; front, rear side and top. I put these into the scene by creating planes at different angles, then applied the Bitmap images to the planes, and using the "UVW map" on them and Bitmap Fit to make them come into 3Dsmax at the correct scale.
I started the modeling by using flat circles and lines to create polygons, I started at the wheel arch with a circle to get the right shape. From here I used the same technique that I used when modeling the head, and thats to create flowing lines in the direction of the detail. I placed lines and polygons where they would need to go to create detail in the body work.
I used the Extrude and "Ctrl-C" tool to produce more polygons, moving further and further over the body work trying to keep as close the the reference planes as possible. I wanted this car to be accurate to the real example, and not just a car that I made up myself, or failed to model i accurately enough so that it is accurate. This picture below shows the bonnet and pulling the polygons over it, a extruded many times over the bonnet to allow me to get the complex compound curves that it has across the bonnet.
I used a "Symmetry" modifier to save myself half the time of not having to model the other side, also it is a perfect copy of the side I am modeling so it is almost 100% accurate.
I started by modeling the side of the car, and as I made these polygons the side was flat, much like the head model. From here I had to pull or push the vertex into the correct position. I did find it very time consuming to get the correct depth of the car in places such as on the bodykit, roof etc.
I used the "Bevel" tool which I found very useful. I used it for the window frames and plastic around the window, once I had made the window I just selected it with the polygon tool and beveled it in a little distance and then gave it a slight angle. I did this a couple of time to create a step that's just like that on a window. Before I did this I knew that the windows looked a little disjointed from the car itself, this was a simple effective results.
I found making the compound curves of the windows quite difficult, as I did this by eye as my reference images where not suitable. It took a long time of carefully getting the bulge in the window that I wanted, whilst not putting any sharp corners or dents in it.
As I was modelling the car, I started to give polygons different "Material ID's" so to make it more visible to the end result of the car. I set up a "Multi-sub Object" in the materials for this car, I selected the polygon ID I wanted and changed it to suit the car. I made the car light blue as it was easy to work with, the windows with high "Opacity" and frames black.
The windscreen was also another time consuming complex curve to achieve. To create a smooth effect between the polygons I selected "Smoothing Groups" I did this by using the polygon tool and selecting an area that I wanted to become smoother, I had to avoid corners and sharp detail that you want to keep as it would smooth these out.
I made a wheel for my car, It started from a a cylinder with the correct iterations to select spokes and for it to match up the other side. I extruded and chamferd it, finally putting a turbosmooth on the wheel to give it a smooth shinny finish for its material.
This is the wheel I made,
Unfortunately I could not use this as I tilted it off its axis whilst fitting it to the car, and once this had happened I could not animated it as the centre pivot point wouldn't stay central and the wheel would bob up and down. I asked another student in my group to model a wheel for me, which you can see bellow.
Almost complete here I am continuing to smooth out areas that need it, I created the front bumper here which I pulled and extruded from the front wheel arch and then across the body.
Bellow shows the finished shot of the car, here I have made the lights, grill number plate etc. I made these separately as I wanted to use the "UVWmap" on them with an image of the lights themselves which I found on the Internet, I then linked the lights to the car.
Next I wanted to create the scene that the car was in, trying to ruffly model one exact corner at Northweald. I used a plane that I then used the "Soft Selection" to bend it into a 90degree corner, this tool keeps the curves nice and smooth.
I made two images in photoshop for this track one for the concrete and one for the apex. I used the brushes to create the skid lines you can see bellow, I used an image of concrete which I then made more organic buy painting it in places in photoshop.
The grass that surrounds this track is an image that I made in photoshop. I took a stock image of grass and tiled it in photoshop a couple of times, using the stamp tool and brushes I blended the seams together so it was not noticeable. I took the brush and started to create lighter and darker ares of the grass, the outline of the track I made a dirt brown colour to show ware, also I added from skid lines where it looks like the cars have been off the track.
Here bellow shows the track and the grass together, I am very glad I made the images organically in photoshop a it really brings the modelling from generic textures to more realism.
To make the car move I linked all the parts to the car except the wheels. The wheels I needed to make spin continuously on their own before attaching them to the car. I made a small cube which I placed behind the wheel at the hub, and used this as a pivot point and aliened the two together. I made the wheel rotate using the keyframes, but to make the wheel spin continuously and loop over and over I went into the "Graph Editor" and made the one cycle of the spinning wheel an "Out Of Range Type" where it continues to repeat. On top of this I straightened the curve of how fast the wheel spun, as the graph makes it speed up and slow down towards the middle of its cycle, so I straightened these curves to lines so the spinning will remain at one constant speed.
From here I then linked the wheels to the car, and also made a "Line" that goes around the corner, that the car will follow the path. I did this by applying a "Path Constraint" on the car to this line, I select keyframes at the start and finish of the line with car at the start and finish also. When I play this the car moves around the corner whilst the wheels are spinning. I next made the front wheels turn as it is going around the corner, by using keyframes again on the cube I attached to the wheel, I can spin it and create keyframes without interfering with the spin cycle of the wheel itself.
The whole aim of this animation is for the car to drift around the corner, this also means that it needs to create some smoke from the rear tires as they spin up. I selected the "Particle System" "Super Spray" and within its modifier I selected a "Wind Binding" and "Drag Binding". The particle system creates the particles themselves, the the other to are helpers which act on the smoke to make it behave how you want. If i did not use these the smoke would go straight up with no direction at all. The drag binding helps as the car is moving and the particle system is linked to the car itl move with it, this helps to act of the smoke like drag trailing it behind. The wind I adjusted so that it pushed the smoke flat and in the right direction so that it looked like it was coming from the rear tires.
This took almost half a day to set up properly, the number of variations and settings that are available are incredible. As this Particle system is designed to create all sorts of particle based effects not just smoke. To name a few I adjusted the feed rate, size of particles, how long they last for, how long they take to grow, colour, transparency, production rate and many more.
I then lastly added a plane for an image for the sky, and the scene was complete. I next put in one main light source to the far right of the scene, and then light up the foreground and opposite side of the car with 5 more Omni lights. I also used these to get shadows where I wanted the, and also how much detail was on the tire wall etc. I used raytraced shadows, with the density of the shadow turned down, and I selected a slightly lighter colour than black for the shadows.
I placed two cameras into the scene, one at long range and the other up close. My plan is to cut between the two as the car drifts around the corner. I animated the closer camera by making keyframes and then moving the camera to follow the car. I initial selected the "Target" of the camera ans "Linked" it to the car, which makes the camera follow it nicely, but I preferred the manual movement as it looks more natural and organic.
Here below shows some finished renders of the car in motion, and the particle system working really well, I am very happy with the results.
I started the modeling by using flat circles and lines to create polygons, I started at the wheel arch with a circle to get the right shape. From here I used the same technique that I used when modeling the head, and thats to create flowing lines in the direction of the detail. I placed lines and polygons where they would need to go to create detail in the body work.
I used the Extrude and "Ctrl-C" tool to produce more polygons, moving further and further over the body work trying to keep as close the the reference planes as possible. I wanted this car to be accurate to the real example, and not just a car that I made up myself, or failed to model i accurately enough so that it is accurate. This picture below shows the bonnet and pulling the polygons over it, a extruded many times over the bonnet to allow me to get the complex compound curves that it has across the bonnet.
I used a "Symmetry" modifier to save myself half the time of not having to model the other side, also it is a perfect copy of the side I am modeling so it is almost 100% accurate.
I started by modeling the side of the car, and as I made these polygons the side was flat, much like the head model. From here I had to pull or push the vertex into the correct position. I did find it very time consuming to get the correct depth of the car in places such as on the bodykit, roof etc.
I used the "Bevel" tool which I found very useful. I used it for the window frames and plastic around the window, once I had made the window I just selected it with the polygon tool and beveled it in a little distance and then gave it a slight angle. I did this a couple of time to create a step that's just like that on a window. Before I did this I knew that the windows looked a little disjointed from the car itself, this was a simple effective results.
I found making the compound curves of the windows quite difficult, as I did this by eye as my reference images where not suitable. It took a long time of carefully getting the bulge in the window that I wanted, whilst not putting any sharp corners or dents in it.
As I was modelling the car, I started to give polygons different "Material ID's" so to make it more visible to the end result of the car. I set up a "Multi-sub Object" in the materials for this car, I selected the polygon ID I wanted and changed it to suit the car. I made the car light blue as it was easy to work with, the windows with high "Opacity" and frames black.
The windscreen was also another time consuming complex curve to achieve. To create a smooth effect between the polygons I selected "Smoothing Groups" I did this by using the polygon tool and selecting an area that I wanted to become smoother, I had to avoid corners and sharp detail that you want to keep as it would smooth these out.
I made a wheel for my car, It started from a a cylinder with the correct iterations to select spokes and for it to match up the other side. I extruded and chamferd it, finally putting a turbosmooth on the wheel to give it a smooth shinny finish for its material.This is the wheel I made,
Unfortunately I could not use this as I tilted it off its axis whilst fitting it to the car, and once this had happened I could not animated it as the centre pivot point wouldn't stay central and the wheel would bob up and down. I asked another student in my group to model a wheel for me, which you can see bellow.
Almost complete here I am continuing to smooth out areas that need it, I created the front bumper here which I pulled and extruded from the front wheel arch and then across the body.
Bellow shows the finished shot of the car, here I have made the lights, grill number plate etc. I made these separately as I wanted to use the "UVWmap" on them with an image of the lights themselves which I found on the Internet, I then linked the lights to the car.
Next I wanted to create the scene that the car was in, trying to ruffly model one exact corner at Northweald. I used a plane that I then used the "Soft Selection" to bend it into a 90degree corner, this tool keeps the curves nice and smooth.
I made two images in photoshop for this track one for the concrete and one for the apex. I used the brushes to create the skid lines you can see bellow, I used an image of concrete which I then made more organic buy painting it in places in photoshop.
The grass that surrounds this track is an image that I made in photoshop. I took a stock image of grass and tiled it in photoshop a couple of times, using the stamp tool and brushes I blended the seams together so it was not noticeable. I took the brush and started to create lighter and darker ares of the grass, the outline of the track I made a dirt brown colour to show ware, also I added from skid lines where it looks like the cars have been off the track.
Here bellow shows the track and the grass together, I am very glad I made the images organically in photoshop a it really brings the modelling from generic textures to more realism.
To make the car move I linked all the parts to the car except the wheels. The wheels I needed to make spin continuously on their own before attaching them to the car. I made a small cube which I placed behind the wheel at the hub, and used this as a pivot point and aliened the two together. I made the wheel rotate using the keyframes, but to make the wheel spin continuously and loop over and over I went into the "Graph Editor" and made the one cycle of the spinning wheel an "Out Of Range Type" where it continues to repeat. On top of this I straightened the curve of how fast the wheel spun, as the graph makes it speed up and slow down towards the middle of its cycle, so I straightened these curves to lines so the spinning will remain at one constant speed.
From here I then linked the wheels to the car, and also made a "Line" that goes around the corner, that the car will follow the path. I did this by applying a "Path Constraint" on the car to this line, I select keyframes at the start and finish of the line with car at the start and finish also. When I play this the car moves around the corner whilst the wheels are spinning. I next made the front wheels turn as it is going around the corner, by using keyframes again on the cube I attached to the wheel, I can spin it and create keyframes without interfering with the spin cycle of the wheel itself.
The whole aim of this animation is for the car to drift around the corner, this also means that it needs to create some smoke from the rear tires as they spin up. I selected the "Particle System" "Super Spray" and within its modifier I selected a "Wind Binding" and "Drag Binding". The particle system creates the particles themselves, the the other to are helpers which act on the smoke to make it behave how you want. If i did not use these the smoke would go straight up with no direction at all. The drag binding helps as the car is moving and the particle system is linked to the car itl move with it, this helps to act of the smoke like drag trailing it behind. The wind I adjusted so that it pushed the smoke flat and in the right direction so that it looked like it was coming from the rear tires.
This took almost half a day to set up properly, the number of variations and settings that are available are incredible. As this Particle system is designed to create all sorts of particle based effects not just smoke. To name a few I adjusted the feed rate, size of particles, how long they last for, how long they take to grow, colour, transparency, production rate and many more.
I then lastly added a plane for an image for the sky, and the scene was complete. I next put in one main light source to the far right of the scene, and then light up the foreground and opposite side of the car with 5 more Omni lights. I also used these to get shadows where I wanted the, and also how much detail was on the tire wall etc. I used raytraced shadows, with the density of the shadow turned down, and I selected a slightly lighter colour than black for the shadows.
I placed two cameras into the scene, one at long range and the other up close. My plan is to cut between the two as the car drifts around the corner. I animated the closer camera by making keyframes and then moving the camera to follow the car. I initial selected the "Target" of the camera ans "Linked" it to the car, which makes the camera follow it nicely, but I preferred the manual movement as it looks more natural and organic.
Here below shows some finished renders of the car in motion, and the particle system working really well, I am very happy with the results.
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