Creating the Scene - Buildings

Creating the Buildings

To keep the Poly count low in the scenes as there will be lots of different objects - I wanted to look into how I could create objects with high quality but low poly count. 

I experimented different ways into how to create a building that looked realistic yet remained easy to manipulate and wasn't heavy on the scene. 

To start I looked through a lot of building textures and experimented which one looked most realistic as a building but also to the time of Pearl Harbour. I then mapped the building texture to a plane in 3DS max making sure the plane was the same dimensions as the texture (show in picture 1.1)

Picture 1.1

I followed these steps to apply the texture to the plane:

Press 'M' to bring up map editor > Under 'Modes' in top left hand corner changed view to 'Compact material editor' > click top left grey ball > under 'blinn basic parameters' click the grey box next to 'diffuse' > Select bitmap > navigate to the texture desired > click 'show material in viewport' which will show the texture without having to render. 

The texture will now be applied to the plane. 

Something very noticeable about buildings is that they don't have flat surfaces. To make the flat plane more dimensional I followed these steps:

Right click plane > convert to editable poly > click 'edges' under 'selection' > under 'edit geometry' click 'quick slice' > then draw the red line across any section that would either come out of the building or go into (shown in picture 1.2) > Under 'selection' click 'polygon' > hold 'ctrl' and select all the sections that you will be manipulating > click the box on extrude and either drag forward or back the selected polygons > continue to complete the building using this method.

Picture 1.2

The picture below will show you the finished result (picture 1.3)

Picture 1.3

To finish the building I simply mirrored the plane and connected them together. You can reshape the building to how you desire. To create the roof it I created a box and applied a grey slate texture and placed it on top of the building. Below is a picture of the final result. I am quite pleased with how easy and quick I was able to create this building. Yes, it isn't the highest quality and I would be able to create something a lot more effective if I was to spend some time however I wanted to reduce the amount of time and reduce the poly count and this building achieves this. 

 Picture 1.3

Time Spent: 20 minutes

Brainstorming

It is important to get all information, ideas and research into mind maps and brainstorms. This is a brainstorm of the groups ideas.

Storyboard

Now that all the research is completed and the group have finished discussing and brainstorming ideas, the storyboard was created. This is what the animation will follow; however there may slight changes as we continue. 

The second and Last column explains how the scene will begin and end (transition from one scene to the next)
Scene One	Fades in	American Newspaper Headline, ‘Talks of hopeful peace with Japan’	Fades out
Scene Two	Fades in	Map of Pearl Harbour. Slowly zooms into map.	Fades out
Scene Three	Fades in	Camera is low on the sea. Slowly moving forward, Pearl Harbour emerges on horizon.
Scene Four		Once at Pearl Harbour camera twists and moves higher into a bird’s eye view of Pearl Harbour.
Scene Five		Japanese planes emerge on horizon	Fades out
Scene Six	Fades in	American Lego people playing in the streets, Japanese planes go overhead.	Cut to
Scene Seven	Cut into	Close up view following a Japanese planes. Planes fly around Pearl Harbour and start dropping bombs.	Cut to
Scene Eight	Cut into	Close up low shot of American Lego people start to panic and run.	Cut to
Scene Nine	Cut into	Close up side view of Japanese plane dropping bomb.	Cut to

Scene Ten	Cut into	Close up side shot – Inside of USS Arizona. Lego men walking around then a Japanese bomb hits the forward magazine.	Cut to
Scene Eleven	Cut into	Side shot of entire Arizona ship. Arizona explodes, jumping out of water.	Cut to
Scene Twelve	Cut into	High shot looking down – American Airfield. Lego pilots running to the American planes. Bombs dropped on Airfield, destroying some of the American planes.	Cut to
Scene Thirteen	Cut into	Close up front view – American plane. American plane tries to take off but gets bombed as Japanese plane flies overhead.	Cut to
Scene Fourteen	Cut into	High shot looking down – Pearl Harbour. Camera pans from left to right showing the destruction of Pearl Harbour.	Fades out
Scene Fifteen	Fades in	American Newspaper heading, ‘This day will live in Infamy’ Voice over of FDR quoting the newspaper heading.	Fades out

Research

As mentioned earlier, it is key to have as much knowledge of Pearl Harbour and the key aspects. Research was conducted which took several hours. Below is a list of key aspects that were important.

Research:
'It all happened so quickly. At 7.55am on Sunday 7 December 1941, the first of two waves of Japanese aircraft began their deadly attack on the US Pacific Fleet, moored at Pearl Harbour on the Pacific island of Oahu. Within two hours, five battleships had been sunk, another 16 damaged, and 188 aircraft destroyed. Only chance saved three US aircraft carriers, usually stationed at Pearl Harbour but assigned elsewhere on the day. The attacks killed under 100 Japanese but over 2,400 Americans, with another 1,178 injured.

Although swift in execution, the attacks had been slowly brewing for years. The US had once looked upon Japanese ambitions with a level of sympathy, even indulgence. Hit hard by the Great Depression of the early 1930s, however, Japanese disillusion with party government grew and moderates gave way to militants. In 1931 Japan occupied Manchuria in northern China. Over the decade conflict intensified and in July 1937 war was declared. As Japanese aggression increased, its relations with the US deteriorated'

'The Japanese dreamed of an Empire in Asia and began their quest in early 1931. They overran Manchuria and established it as a state, which they named Manchukuo. Moving into China, the Japanese were initially successful, but ultimately encountered the resistance of the Chinese, under the government Chiang Kai-shek. A crisis arose in 1937, when Japan launched a major offensive in an effort to reduce China into submission.'

'Military intelligence did intercept two cipher messages from Tokyo to Kichisaburo Normura, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, that suggested an imminent attack, but Richmond Turner, in charge of evaluating and dissemination, did not pass on warnings of the proposed attack to Admiral Husband Kimmel.'





Research Websites:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/pearl_harbour_01.shtml
http://history1900s.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/Attack-Pearl-Harbor.htm
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/pearlhbr.htm
http://www.gohawaii.com/uk/oahu/regions-neighborhoods/central-oahu/pearl-harbour
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWpearl.htm
http://www.pearlharboroahu.com/attack.htm


The film Pearl Harbor has enriched the research and developed it further by gaining visual representations of the attack.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213149/

Important scenes from the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv1niwxQgoY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eIKVCmgt6U


Documentaries also provided more information:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1TnD45tGHo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e99lfmmDN0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e99lfmmDN0

 Overview

• Japanese conducted an air attack on Pearl Harbour (America)
• It was a surprise attack - America and Japan were in talks of peace.
• The attack happened on December 7,1941.
• 2400 Americans were killed
• 29 Japanese Airplanes were destroyed

Group Roles

Recreating the Pearl Harbour attack is a huge undertaking, even when you're in a team. There were many aspects of this assignment that needed to be looked over and studied in depth. As a group team Alpha decided it would be beneficial to divide the workload into four separate sections where possible - some parts of the task would require the entire group to complete it.

Below is a list of the models that need to be made in 3DS max before an animation can start.

Models:

• Japanese Airplanes
• American Airplanes
• American Ships
• Terrain/Buildings/Landscapes
• Humans

One person will be modelling the Lanscapes/Terrain/Buildings.
One person will be modelling the Japanese Airplanes.
One person will be modelling the American Airplanes.
One person will be modelling the American Ships and Humans.

Initial reactions to the Virtual Enviornment's Brief

This blog has been created to document the project; recreation of the Pearl Harbour attack. It will include the complete design process undertaken through a twelve week duration.

The brief

Introduction

Just before 8 on the morning of December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage lasted just two hours, but it was devastating: The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and almost 200 airplanes. More than 2,000 Americans soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan; Congress approved his declaration with just one dissenting vote. Three days later, Japanese allies Germany and Italy also declared war on the United States, and again Congress reciprocated. More than two years into the conflict, America had finally joined World War II. – [http://www.history.com/topics/pearl-harbor]

 Your Brief

In teams of three or four, using 3D Studio Max, you are to produce an animation to show how the attack on Pearl Harbour unfolded. You are to produce an informative documentary style video which accurately depicts the attack with reference to thorough research which must also be documented as part of the module.

As a part of the brief, an example of previous work was produced to give an insight of the type of animation required. Looking at the example it has enabled us as a group and individually to start thinking about what style we would like to go down.

The example given showed great animation skills but there were some aspects that could have been improved.  Parts of the animation were of a lower quality of work than others and didn't hold much standing to the message of the animation so were redundant. The movement of the models were rigid and didn't flow smoothly.

From reading the brief and viewing an example it has shown the amount of work needed to complete such task, this will then be discussed by the group and a work chart drawn to maintain a constant work flow throughout the duration of the project.