The History Channel - Ident 2 |
Ident 2
For my second Ident my idea was to create a camouflage style sniper hide where the character will aim down the scope and see the History Channel Logo as the target.
Similarly to the first Ident I started by creating the scene itself followed by the animation afterwards. To begin with a large flat cylinder was created for the floor of the scene which was given a white diffuse colour using an empty material slot. The viewport background environment colour was also set to white to create a white void. This therefore when rendered produced a scene with no horizon, this should in turn focus the attention to the main objects of the scene which will stand out from the white backdrop.
The initial object I created was the Camouflage net for the Sniper Hide. This started as a basic plane object which was given an high amount of height and width segments. It was then converted to an editable poly where I began to delete random polygons across its surface to replicate a holey camouflage net/cover which would typically be found in any military location. This process was tremendously monotonous as I tried to achieve the most random appearance possible without repeating the same shaped holes, which would reduce the level of realism.
Net Making Process Finished Camo Net
Click for full-size image Click for full-size image
I then created the framework of the hide structure to which the camouflage will be draped over. This was created using normal cylinder primitives which represented upright corner poles and angled roof struts. Having rotated these cylinders I select and grouped them ready to act as a collision object for the cloth camo net. The previously created camouflage net was then given a Cloth Modifier and preset cloth type of "Generic Heavy". The cylinders that the structure is comprised in addition to the ground were added as collision objects to the camo net cloth modifier. The generic heavy preset basically means that the cloth object has altered parameters making it less stretchy, as a result of mimicking properties of that preset based on its real life characteristics.
Camo Net Cloth Properties
In order to stop the cloth falling off the cylinder structure once it had been simulated, I preserved a line of vertices along the middle of the camo net which should rest on the centre pole of the frame underneath. Having prepared these parameters beforehand I then simulated the cloth locally until the desired draping effect was reached. A clone of my character was positioned underneath the structure to provide a rough guidance of how much I could let the material sag.
Camouflage Net - Simulated Cloth
Now that I had created all the necessary objects for my second Ident, I textured the Camo net using a custom Camouflage pattern which I created in Adobe Photoshop. This was also given a corresponding bump map by adding a fabric overlay to the pattern, in addition to de-saturating it from within Photoshop. The camo pattern and its bump map were added to an empty material slot and then assigned to the Camo net using a "Planar" UVW map which evenly distributed the texture over the selected cloth object. An Unwrap UVW modifier was also applied to reduce the pattern's scale to a more suitable size. The cylinder structure was also given a shiny green raytrace material to simulate a painted metal type effect. I also took another screenshot of the entire scene which was set as the reflection map for the lens material of the rifle scope.
Textured Camo Net
Camo Pattern Click for full-size image
The character was then made to crouch down using the same method as the first ident, except this time the rifle slides through the hand as it makes contact with the ground. Once in a squatting position it then became considerably harder to make the character move into a crawling pose given its current position. At first the character was made to sit on its knees, whilst leaning forward and then reaching out with its arms. This was achieved by lowering the master hip bone far enough to assume a crouching position. The arm bones and base of the spine where then rotated sequentially with Auto Key active in addition to gradually moving the time slider along. The next stage was to make its hands touch the ground and take the weight of its body as it lowers itself down onto the ground. This was accomplished by rotating the collar and shoulder bones forward allowing the arms to be moved into position. The angle of the arms and spine were pointed downwards to portray the exchanging of weight transferred to the characters arms is it lowers its body downwards. The rifle was also rotated in unison with the left hand until the character was lying down.
Weight Transfer
At this stage I then had to make the character crawl forwards on its torso. This was animated by creating a crawling cycle in the same way as the walk cycle which I implemented during the first Ident. The crawling cycle started by rotating the hip bone forwards, followed by the rest of the leg bones to create a bent position. With Auto Key still enabled the character was then moved forward using the master hip bone until the bent leg had reached an outstretched position. At this point the other leg then repeated the same process. The arms followed a similar cycle where the opposite arm would reach forward as the opposite leg moved, then the arm would take up a bent position for the following arm to reach forward. These movements were then looped to create the crawling cycle until the character had reached far enough inside the sniper hide. The left arm was also occasionally rotated to enable the character to manoeuvre the rifle through the opening in the camo net.
Crawling Cycle Animation
Once the character had reached this end position I then made it lift up the rifle by rotating the required arm and finger bones. The rifle was then held up towards the character's left eye, where I then rotated the head forwards to simulate it peering into the scope. This concluded the character animation aspects, I then proceeded by setting up the lighting and cameras.
Rifle Aiming Position
Only one light was created for the scene, this entailed a Target Spot Light which was positioned high above the scene using the top viewport. This was given Raytrace shadows which provided clean and sharp shadows which help them to stand out in a white scene.
Target Spot Light
A Free Camera was then created and was placed behind the character facing the Camo net structure. The camera was then made to follow the character's movement using the same Auto Key technique as the first ident. The camera follows the character inside the sniper hide and then looks through the sniper scope as it is lifted up. The camera then zooms from the scope down towards the History Channel Logo in the distance. This procedure was carried out using the walkthrough tool to manually position the camera each time via the keyboard and mouse, similar to the controls of a typical FPS (First Person Shooter) on PC.
Free Camera Walkthrough
Ident 2 - Final Video Animation
The video below is the finished 15 second ident, please note that it has been heavily compressed for fast uploading/web purposes, the full resolution and top quality version is available on the DVD.
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