Modelling and Animation CA

Henry Williams

presents

Toys:4U

TANK ATTACK
COM3404 Modelling and Animation: Descriptive and Technical Documentation Henry Williams h.e.l.williams@ex.ac.uk

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Table of Contents

Page No.

1. Introduction ...................................................................................................3 1.1. Assignment Specification ...............................................................3 1.2. Design Rational..................................................................................3 1.3. Ideas ......................................................................................................3 2. Initial Design ..............................................................................................5 2.1. Short Script & Storyboard..............................................................5 2.2. Others techniques.............................................................................5 3. Overall Outline and Environmental Design .....................................6 4. Modelling....................................................................................................10 4.1. The Tank .............................................................................................11 4.2. Tank movement particles.............................................................15 4.3. Shell......................................................................................................16 4.4. Shell contrail .....................................................................................17 4.5. Round smoke ....................................................................................18 4.6. Shell Display......................................................................................19 4.7. Explosions ..........................................................................................19 5. Lights Camera Animation.............................................................21 5.1. Cameras and Lighting....................................................................21 5.2. Key Frame Animation ....................................................................22 5.2.1. Animating the tank.................................................................23 5.2.2. Animation of the shells & explosions...............................24 5.3. Channel Scoping ..............................................................................24 5.4. Path Animation ................................................................................25 5.5. The Shots............................................................................................26 6. Rendering and Post-production.........................................................28 6.1. Rendering from Houdini ...............................................................28 6.2. First steps in Premiere ..................................................................28 6.3. The scene, titles and credits .......................................................29 6.4. Adding Transitions ..........................................................................30 6.5. Final Output.......................................................................................30 7. Conclusion..................................................................................................32 8. References .................................................................................................33 Appendix A Script ........................................................................................34 Appendix B Storyboards ...........................................................................35 Appendix C SOP & POP Networks .........................................................40 Appendix D SHOPs Network....................................................................49 Appendix D SHOPs Network....................................................................50 Appendix E 100% PAL Images...............................................................51 Appendix F Rough Work ...........................................................................54

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Modelling and Animation CA 1. Introduction 1.1. Assignment Specification

Henry Williams

You are the product design manager at Toys4U - an innovative company of toy developers. You have been asked to develop a presentation of a new design concept. You should imagine that your work will be used as a short video presentation to a board of executives to sell an idea and secure approval for future development and funding. [1] 1.2. Design Rationale Development for this project will take place initially using Side Effects Houdini 6.1 Apprentice Edition (for modelling, animation and rendering) and secondarily with Adobe Premiere Pro 7.0 (for postproduction). The key idea of the learning behind this project is to develop a skill-set and gain grounding in 3D modelling and animation. While not the main aim of the coursework, it will also give experience of final video production. To meet the requirements of the specification, the following will need to be completed: Write a short script (a few paragraphs). Create a storyboard that demonstrates through simple drawings, the main points of the story. Model the 3D scene (the environment) and objects (the toy and related paraphernalia) in Houdini. Output a fully rendered 2D representation of the scene as a series of still images. Merge these frames into a continuous video clip using Premiere using appropriate titles and cuts.

1.3. Ideas My initial thoughts bore no relation whatsoever to the story I chose to base my final animation on. As the key requirement of the project was for an animation, I thought that this would be best demonstrated with a simple, relatively familiar event that involved lots of movement. Given this I started creating designs and storyboards around the idea of Crash Test Dummies there was a great deal of information available 9-Dec-03

Figure 1.3.1 Car design

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on the subject on the web and plenty of real life videos to get ideas from. The project specification was for a toy company, and as such the product demonstrated has to be suitable for children; with a simple tweak the idea was refined to the Crash Test Action Set with moveable limbs. Since this was my first real work in Houdini, I found that designing a realistic car was difficult and that meeting the project deadlines was unrealistic. At this point, other ideas were investigated. After playing some war based computer games, I hit upon an idea. My final decision was to create an animation based on a tank battle scene, Tank Attack. A group of allied tanks and enemy face each other off in a dusty desert scenario. I thought that by doing this I could create an environment that was both fun and would demonstrate the toy tank (with working gun and realistic smoke!) well. Certainly, I believe that the board of executives would enjoy watching the animation.

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Modelling and Animation CA 2. Initial Design 2.1. Short Script & Storyboard

Henry Williams

Before even touching a computer, a conceptual script was needed that showed each step that was envisaged in the final film to be produced. This was an extremely important step, because virtually all of the work of the project was based upon it. Given this as a base, it was possible to produce a visual interpretation of it in the form of a storyboard. A storyboard is a series of drawing illustrating the story a visual script that demonstrates camera and objects movement, and is the final stage of design and planning. Each drawing shows a key part of the animation sequence and can provide technical and other pertinent information about the scene. This is the main piece of design used when building objects and the scene in Houdini. Using visual indicators I have made it clear what I thought I would like to happen. Drawing the storyboard also gave me an opportunity to think about some of the lighting and cut scenes that I could use at post-production and what would come across best.

The script and storyboards for this project can be found in Appendix A and B respectively.
2.2. Others techniques I found that doing research improved my visualisation of the objects I wanted to create. Using the web and books I came up with the concept of a tank that I liked which I then roughly drew up (see Appendix F). I also knew from experience Google Images [4] can find a great deal of textures available on the web, so even before I started I had found many textures that could be incorporated in my design.

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Modelling and Animation CA 3. Overall Outline and Environmental Design

Henry Williams

The final scene of an animation is generated from the compositing of many individual objects, including lighting and cameras. Below is an overview of the objects that has been used in this project.

Figure 3.1 Overview of objects

This section covers how the environment, such as sky, ground and lighting were set up. Further breakdowns of the object hierarchy, including SOP, POP and SHOPs networks are included in the appendices. In my design there were 8 key groups of objects: 9-Dec-03 Cameras Lighting Environment (ground, sky and plantation) Explosions Tanks (allied) Tank (enemy) Page 6 of 55

Modelling and Animation CA Spatial Reference Shells

Henry Williams

At this level, there were a few unusual techniques as far as the initial training was concerned. Before designing the objects that would eventually populate the scene, the creation of an environment was needed. Using my storyboard as a base, I had an idea of how I wanted the scene to look. A desert scenario gave a lot of opportunity for particle effects, but at the same time was not overly detailed and so did not need the modelling of extraneous objects. To get a realistic backdrop for a daytime desert scene a backdrop had to be made that looked realistic from any perspective, for instance when following the shell through the air. After some searching on Google Images I found a suitable sky texture map. Initially, the backdrop was creating using four Grid SOPs arranged in a square, but when passing the junctions with a camera this proved to give an unbelievable view that stretched in the wrong places. Given this, I began looking at other applications such as games and Figure 3.1.1 Sky Texture movies and tried to establish how their atmospheres had been created. It became clear that at least a blue sky background was being mapped onto a curve object this I concluded, ensured that while a camera was rotating the sky was kept at a set distance from the lens making it appear smooth with movement. With this in hand I was able to create a large (radius 105) Sphere SOP that was big enough to fit an entire scene into, onto which I placed the sky texture using a Shader SOP. This gave a much more reasonable impression when moving around with a camera. To create the ground, another Grid SOP (200 size) was used, however this time it was placed horizontally (ZX) plane. To make the grid suitable for large scale editing, the grid was given 20 columns and rows, providing enough points to make changes as required by the storyboard.

Figure 3.1.2 Desert Texture

A Fractal SOP was added to give the surface a random, dune like nature to it. Fractal operations are a recent phenomenon, coined in 1975 [3] they build an object using recursion where some aspect of the limiting object 9-Dec-03 Page 7 of 55

Modelling and Animation CA

Henry Williams is infinite and another is finite [3]. The settings used in this example are a smoothness of 0.185, scale of 0.97 and a seed of 9. Finally, an Edit SOP was added to give the surface a raised hill in approximately 1/8 of the space in the corner. This translated the area 3 units along the Y axis.

To give the desert a more desert like appearance a textured Figure 3.1.3 Editing the ground shape surface was applied using a JPEG image found (figure 3.1.2). As a composite, the sky and ground gave a realistic scene for the animation. While the ground looked like a desert, few deserts are in actual fact completely baron. I thought that a couple of desert shrubs would add to the scene and give it a sense of realism and perspective in the final animation. The plant that it was loosely based was the New Mexican Agave [2]. The plant was built from an individual leaf through to a fully developed plant. Since the leaf, and plant as a whole would only be seen from a distance, intricate detail was not that important. The initially and only hand drawn part of the design was created with a NURBS Curve SOP against a background in the front perspective.

Figure 3.1.4 Three stages of Leaf design (curve SOP, mirror SOP, skin SOP)

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This was followed by a mirror around the Y axis, and a skin operation to a layer. Using an individual leaf, it was possible to copy a single leaf many times in a rotational fashion to give a spreading pattern. The pattern was created using two Copy SOPs. The first, rotating -15.1o on X and 28.1o on Y and copying 4 times, created a small group of leaves spreading out from the centre. This group was then copied 6 times with the second SOP, using a formula to calculate the rotation on the Y axis. The formula was 360/$NCY (meaning 360 divided by the number of copies) and ensured that the copies were evenly spread around the Y axis. These together created a plant as required. Suitable Shader SOPs were applied, with a green one for the Figure 3.1.5 VEX leaves and a yellow and red one for the centre stamen. The Polka Dots Shop stamen colour was achieved by creating a shader using the VEX Polka Dots SHOP, using red colour for the dot colour, yellow for the base colour and a yellow/brown for the specular colour, as in figure 3.2. The final result was duplicated using copy and paste in the object overview, and each was placed individually on the deserts surface (the ground object).

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Modelling and Animation CA 4. Modelling

Henry Williams

This section will discuss how each of the main models in the project was constructed and how they were translated into the world geometry for use in the final scene. The SOP networks for these objects can be found in appendix C. Houdini uses the SHOPs tool (shaders) to create and edit textures that can be added to objects. A list of the shaders that have been created, and how they have been used in this project, can be found in Appendix D.

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Modelling and Animation CA 4.1. The Tank

Henry Williams

A tank by its very nature is a complex object, and for the purposes of this project the design approach taken was to build the tank at a simple level first, and then enhance the model progressively until the final result was reached. To begin with, the main body of the tank was created. This was done by first using a NURBS Curve SOP to create a body cross section, and then using a Duplicate SOP to give the outline of the whole body. The Duplicate SOP created 3 copies, with a displacement along the X axis of 0.235. While it would be possible to just have a single duplication, duplication multiple times ensures that when a Skin SOP is added it wraps evenly over the object. Figure 4.1.1 Duplicated tank outline With the addition of a default Skin SOP and a Cap SOP (both caps rounded, using 20 divisions at 0.1 scale) to give curved sides to the tank body, the main section is complete. For a tank to be animated, it would need wheels and tracks to give the viewer an impression of moving, rather than floating across the surface of the desert. This posed two key problems; to get the wheels to rotate at the correct speed for the displacement over time of the tank, and secondly to create tracks that rotate over a non-circular path, again at the correct rate for the movement of the tank. The wheel was created with a polygon Curve wheel SOP. To give the impression of an axel running through the middle, the curve was shaped to rise in the middle and on the edge for the tyre, with a dip in the middle. This curve was then revolved, using a Revolve SOP, around the Y axis. The specification for the wheel was 0.12 in both radius and depth.
Figure 4.1.2 Finished

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Tanks often have different size wheels depending on the wheel position, so secondary smaller wheels were also created, using a different, simpler method. For the wheel itself, a polygon Tube SOP of radius 0.075 was created. To add some realism, as with the larger wheel, bolts were created with further capped Tube SOPs, rotated and duplicated 9 times around the basic tube using the formula 360/$NCY.
Figure 4.1.3 Smaller wheel

Transform SOPs to enable rotation later were added at this point. To represent a tank the wheels need to be duplicated along the one of the tank and then mirrored to the other side. To accomplish this, first a Duplicate SOP was appended to each wheel, and in the case of the large wheel, duplicated 3 times with a displacement of -0.32 on the Z axis and with the smaller wheel 1 time with a displacement of -1.45, also along the Z axis. Finally, a Mirror SOP was added to each with a distance of 0.501. The operations were kept independent in case of any changes with the wheel design later. The whole collection of wheels was merged together and to complete them, a Shaders SOP to colourise the wheels properly, was added (final_wheels in the SOP network in Appendix C).

Figure 4.1.4 Final wheel build

The next and most difficult step in the development of the tank was to create the tracks for the tank. This uses the unusual Creep SOP to move an object along a path to give the impression of tracks rolling along. As with the creation of the cross-sections for the tank body, a NURBS Curve SOP was drawn following the path of the outside edge of the wheel set this is the eventual path, as shown in figure 4.1.5 that the tank tracks will follow. Taking this curve, a Copy SOP is combined with a Skin SOP to give a path that follows the wheels (track_path in the SOP network in Appendix C). At this point the Creep SOP is
Figure 4.1.5 Tank track curve outline

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added. As the left input it takes a multiple copied object, in this case I was using a Box SOP of dimensions 0.02x0.01x0.0004 added with a Copy SOP creating 33 copies with 0.737 displacement along the X axis. When joined with the Skin SOP on second input it displayed a realistic looking tank track. To make the tracks appear to move, a key frame animation was required (see the Animation section of the report for further details on how this was accomplished). The next major step in the development of the tank was the creation of the turret that sits on top of the body. Given the plans on the storyboard, the intention was that this turret would be able to rotate and that the barrel would be able Figure 4.1.6 Turret outline to raise and lower. To begin with a polygon Curve SOP was created that took a cross section of a turret shape, as in figure 4.1.6. Length-wise it was roughly that of the tanks body. This was then extended across the width of the tank, up to the edge the body, with an Extrude SOP at its default setting (identical to those of the tank). Next, a base for the tanks aerial needed to be created. This was relatively simple, using a Tube SOP set to radius 0.1x0.3 and height 0.2 (making it smaller at the top), to make it look squared rather than round the columns variable was set to 4 (the number of sides). With a suitably configured Transform SOP it was placed on topcentre of the turret already constructed. Finally, an aerial need to be created; this was again done with a Tube SOP Figure 4.1.7 Aerial with base with radius 0.0025x0.0125 and height 0.45. All but the last row of tube were then altered with an Edit SOP, rotating by about -37o on X axis. This has the effect of bending the aerial towards the bottom. These three operation groups were then combined using a Merge SOP to create the basic turret (see turret_merge1). To add a barrel to the turret, first some space at the front of the turret need to created. This was accomplished using a Tube SOP, again configured as a cube, Page 13 of 55

Figure 4.1.8 The result of the cookie SOP (yellow) with the original cube B input (black)

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with radius 0.3x0.3 and height 0.3. As before, to get the square edges, the columns variable was set to 4. The Cookie SOP has two inputs, A and B; in this case A was took the merged turret operation and B took the cube that has just been created. The cookies operation was set to A minus B effectively producing a third object where the intersection of B with A is now missing from the object originally passed to the A input of the cookie. The two objects did not originally line up, so a transform object was added to the merged turret operation, and the centre of the Tube SOP was altered until the two aligned, with the cube lying at an angle with the front of the turret (see figure 4.1.8). The turret was now applied with an appropriate shader using a UVTexture SOP followed by a Shader SOP, where the surface property was set to camouflage or enemy_camouflage (see Appendix D). The most important part of the tank, the barrel, was added at this stage. The barrel itself was created with a NURBS Tube SOP, orientated to the Z axis, of radius 0.05x0.05 and height 1.36. Making this a NURBS tube made the rendered output a lot more detailed and created more accurate reflections. The base of the barrel, a large tube was created with another primitive tube, with radius 0.08x0.08 and height 0.18 orientated to the Z axis. The centre of the tube was altered negatively along the Z axis so that it sat against the base of the barrel tube. Finally, using the orthographic views of Houdini, a curve was added from the top of the larger tube to the edge of the barrel tube, this was given depth with an Extrude SOP (depth offset -0.002 and depth scale 0.004) and then feathered as it meets with the barrel tube. To accomplish this, a Twist SOP was Figure 4.1.9 The final barrel added to the output of the extrusion. A feathering was achieved by setting the operation to Linear Taper along XZ and the strength was set to 2. These three separate groups of operations were brought together, as with the turret, using a Merge SOP. Using a transformation, the barrel was aligned to the front of the turret, using the space created through the earlier cookie operation. The barrel was completed with a Shader SOP set to use allied_green or enemy_grey (see Appendix D). To add the final part of the turret, the joint between the turret and tank body, another primitive Tube SOP was created with radius 0.2x0.2 and height 0.03. This was then transformed onto the base of the turret. This did not need to be shaded since it was generally not in view. These were then again merged with the earlier merge. All of the 9-Dec-03 Page 14 of 55

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operations were brought together with one single merge, and transformed into place. The tank, in my opinion did not look real enough. During my initial planning I had seen a lot of tanks that had side guards over their tracks, which hung down from the body of tank; as such, my initial rough tank drawing included them. I imagine that these were to protect the tanks from being taken out by small arms, effectively disabling it. The process to create the guards was relatively simple. First a small grid was created that would cover the tracks across the top and also cover them approximately half way down to the ground. I used a Grid SOP of size 0.5x1, and aligned it with the footprint (using the footprint flag) of the tank body and tracks using the centre parameters. To curve it around and over the tracks, an Edit SOP was added and pulled over the edge, as shown in figure 4.1.10. Lastly, the shield was mirrored with a distance of 0.5 and then a Figure 4.1.10 The side shield UVTexture SOP and Shader

SOP were added, as with the tank body and turret

to add camouflage.

Figure 4.1.11 The finished tank

The tank, as a model was complete. I created more tanks simply by copying and pasting, altering position and textures where appropriate. 4.2. Tank movement particles Since my tank was moving across sand I decided that I needed a cloud of dust coming from the back of the tank while it was moving. To create this effect, a Particle SOP was used. A particle operation takes three inputs; a particle source, a collision object and a force object. Only the first is mandatory, but with all three, a more realistic cloud could be created. Beginning with the particle source, this was simple a grid basically configured to be a very complex 2D line. The size was set at 5x1 and centre 0.5x0.1x-1.6. The crucial part here was to set the number of rows to 1 (making it a line) and the columns to 200 (making it complex). A Point SOP was connected to the grid, to give each point velocity. Velocity needed to be changed to Add Velocity, the Y value of which should be set to $NY*10. Finally, a point Sort SOP was added to randomise the output order, with the Point Sort set to Random.

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This was connected to the left input of a Particle SOP. Next was the collision object. This has the effect that when particles created by the Particle SOP collided with the object connected to this input they would rebound. Since the ground was not in this SOP network I brought it in using the Object Merge SOP setting the Object 1 variable to /obj/ground. Last, a group objects to move the particles around was connected, the first of which was a group of meatballs. This was created with a single Metaball SOP (with radius 4.2x6.7x4.2
Figure 4.2.1 Array of particle guns

and weight 10), and copied 10 times with a Copy SOP (with a 2 translation along the X axis).

When combined with a Force SOP (with direction 0x-0.1x-1 and axial force 2) and fed to the particle operation as the third input this created an array of particle guns. This however did not provide a very random stream of particles and so a Primitive SOP was added to enable the array to be rotated using the formula sin ($F*100). This formula produces a large sinusoidal wave form that the rotation follows, spreading the particles. Since the cloud was being generated from sand, a UVTexture SOP and Shader SOP had to be added, using the desert texture, to make it look like a sand storm. 4.3. Shell The shell was simply constructed of two tubes; one formed the main body of the shell (the casing) and the second formed the silver tip. The casing tube was a NURBS Tube SOP with height 4.44; this was then capped using a Cap SOP. The tube needed to be capped at both ends, so the First U Cap should be set as End cap rounded with a scale of 0.3; this gives a slight convex curve to the point where it will meet the silver tip tube. The Last U Cap should also be set as End cap rounded and scaled to -0.06, giving a concave curve in real life this would be to concentrate the force applied by the tank will push the round out of the barrel.

Figure 4.3.1 The finished shell

The silver tip of the shell is created with a small tube that is then made larger with a large end cap. First a NURBS Tube SOP was created with

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the centre variable set to 2 on the Y axis, radius 0.9 and height 0.1. This gave a narrow band sitting inside the top of the larger casing tube. To give it a pointed effect, a Cap SOP was applied. Since the bottom of the tube was inside the first tube this did not need to be capped, but the First U Cap needed to be set to End cap rounded with a scale of 3.68. Two shaders were created to fit the shell, one was highly reflective silver and the other was a slightly less reflective copper. As with other texture applications this was achieved with a Shader SOP (refer to Appendix D). These two were merged together to form the shell object. Using a transform operation, the whole shell was scaled to 0.2 to bring it into proportion with the tank. 4.4. Shell contrail The intention was for a trail of smoke to follow the shell once it was fired from a tank to give a sense of both movement and speed. The ideal design would have been similar to that of the tank, giving an impression of cloud. To keep the contrail distinct from that of the shell a new geometry object was created into which a polygon Circle SOP (radius 0.04 and divisions 16) was added this formed the basis of the emitter that would attach to the back of the shell. To give points within the circle itself, it was then converted to a mesh with a Convert SOP setting the Convert To type to Mesh. Then a Point SOP was added to add a normal to the points of the circle (changing Keep Normal to Add Normal). Parallel to this was an Object Merge SOP, bringing in the shell (/obj/shell) from the object level. This is the object the emitter was to be built on. However, since only the back of the shell was required to emit particles, a Group SOP was appended to enable the selection of the respective points. Homing in on the shell merge (Space-H), and turning on the points option enabled easier selection when the group of inner-bottom cells was created. The mesh and shell were both fed into a new Copy SOP, taking the left and right inputs respectively. When a copy operation has two inputs it copies the left input onto all of the points of the other input since we had only got those that were grouped being inputted, these received a copy of the mesh.
Figure 4.4.1 Shell with emitters

Next was the creation of the POP network. POP networks enable the user to generate sophisticated particle effects which can then be Page 17 of 55

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exported to the SOP level. The aim of this section was to generate a sophisticated developing smoke trail behind the shell. First, a particle source is required, as a Source POP that is, something from the SOP level that the particles should be emerging from. Here the emitter that has just been created was used, setting the SOP Property to /obj/shell_emitters1/copy1. With the emitter now present in the POP level, it is possible to append POPs to get a realistic effect. To get some particle movement, a Force POP was added. This control the force upon each pixel a large value along one axis causes the pixels to large move in that direction. In this case, the force was set to 0x2x-rand ($F). The Y value ensured the smoke would trail from the emitters, while the formula in the Z value gave the smoke a little bit of random movement, almost as though there was a light wind. Next, a Drag POP was added this does exactly that, adding drag to each particle at its default settings. When planning this animation, I knew that when a contrail emerges from a jet engine it tends to begin small and grow, spreading out. In this project the same can be achieved with a Growth POP. This was appended to the drag, and given a Local Variable of GROWTH, size of 3, default of 2x2x2 and value of 4x4x4 (the difference between which is the size by which the particles grow). However, it did not define the type of growth for this a Property SOP was needed. Using the Scale property, a formula was created that made the growth smooth smooth ($AGE,0,$GROWTH1). Finally, to be able to make the stream of particles look more like cloud, an Instance POP was added. This allows each particle to be modelled on some geometry from the SOP level. In this case, an object called particle_circle was used it was a sphere of radius 0.1. Coming back to the SOP level, where the copy operation had been left, a Pop Merge SOP was added which basically imported the POP network that had just been created, into the SOP level. While strictly not required I then merged this, with a Merge SOP, with the copy operation. This allowed me to visualise where the particles would be emerging from because the emitters were now visible. 4.5. Round smoke A round is launched from a tank by triggering an explosive behind the shell causing explosive out gassing, pushing the shell out of the barrel. With the explosion there is smoke, and this is what this part was trying to animate.

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In a similar fashion to that of the emitters, a Circle SOP of radius 0.04 (slightly smaller than that of the barrel) was created, and then converted to a mesh with a Convert SOP. After applying a random Sort SOP this became the particle source. To give some movement after leaving the tank barrel, a metaball (roughly radius 1, with weight 2, XY exponent of 0.49 and Z exponent of 1.04) was created and appended with a Force SOP blowing the particles heavily (around 10) along the X and Y axis. Along with this the particles were being twisted as they moved, having an Axial Force of 0.267 and a Vortex Force of 0.272. With the Force SOP and Sort SOP connected to the left and right input of a Particle SOP this stage was complete. Using UVTexture and Shader SOPs a smoke (see Appendix D) texture was applied to give the particles a realistic appearance. 4.6. Shell Display This object was simply to draw together the shell object and emitter object into one single object. A display, emitter, and POP network were required for each shell that I want to animate being fired because each would be moving at a different time in the animation and as such would need different key frames. By keeping each distinct part of the development of the shell separate, it made future changes a lot simpler. Using two Object Merge SOPs and relevant transforms, brought together with a Merge SOP it was possible to see a combined shell and contrail when animated in the final render. 4.7. Explosions The explosions in my animation were for when shells crashed down in front of enemy tanks. Each explosion was the same, albeit with some random parameters, so it was possible to copy and paste them to create more. As with other particle effects, a Particle SOP had 3 inputs; a source, a collision object and a force. The source was a NURBS Grid SOP with 20 rows and columns, combined with a random Sort SOP. The collision object was the ground and the force was a combination of a metaball (of weight 100) and Force SOP (with Radial Force of 0.4, Direction 0x1x0, Axial Force 0.04 and Vortex Force 0.06). The particle itself had External Force of 0x2x0, Turbulence of 5x15x5, Turb Period of 1.74, Mass of 1.14, Life Expect of 0.783, and Life 9-Dec-03 Page 19 of 55

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Variance. All these variables combine to give a realistic explosion. I added a UVTexture SOP and Shader SOP as with the particle effect from the back of the tank, using the desert texture. Finally, an Object Merge and Transform SOP were merged with the shader, to bring a shell into the object. This was all that was needed to create an explosion.

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Modelling and Animation CA 5. Lights Camera Animation

Henry Williams

Without Lights, Camera and some form of animation a viewer would effectively be looking at a dark, if not invisible, picture. To animate the scenes, the number of frames available had to be calculated. While 24 fps (frames per second) was recommended by the CA specification I decided to go with the natural frame rate of PAL (the video standard in the UK) which is 25 fps. Given a maximum length of 30 seconds for animation this meant there were 750 frames with which to work. I found that the easiest way to organise what I wanted to animate, and when, was to create a rough page (see Appendix E) listing each and every second in the animation with the respective frame numbers and what would be happening at that point. In Houdini there are two key forms of animation; path and key frame animation. While path animation has not been extensively used in this animation, the ideas behind it have been used in the animation of the tank tracks. 5.1. Cameras and Lighting During the development and rendering of this animation I used 3 lights; 1 ambient and 2 normal. These provide a light source, shadows, and make it possible to see things in essence they make the view the scene look more realistic. Since the desert is usually a place that experiences little cloud, I used two light sources on their default settings to illuminate the scene. While they did move position between each scene that I was rendering, in Figure 5.1.1 Lighting in the project general I had one pointing towards the allied tanks (top yellow circle in figure 5.1.1) and the other towards the enemy tanks (bottom yellow circle in figure 5.1.1).

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Modelling and Animation CA

Henry Williams

There were 8 cameras used during this project, 2 of which were not used in the final rendering. I found that for some scenes, camera positioning was not quite right, so I created a second camera with the alt suffix. This allowed me to try different positions and animation techniques and select the most appropriate one for the scene. The unused cameras were:

test_cam This was used for positioning shots for test renders
to make sure that everything looked correct before investing hours of computer time in a production render.

cam4 For one shot in my animation I set up two shots with

two cameras and tried both. This was on the one I decided not to use.

The cameras used were:

cam1 The movement back from the enemy tanks towards the

first allied tank, and then rotating of the camera towards the two rear allied tanks. Additionally the camera looks at the other allied tanks as the both fire as well (although this was not used in the final render).

cam2 The camera sitting on top of the first allied tank as the
turret rotates. shell.

cam3 The view from in front of the first allied tank as it fires a cam4alt The camera follows the shell through the air as the
camera rotates gradually clockwise.

cam1alt A tight shot of the rear two allied tanks as they fire. cam5 The camera looks is close up to the enemy tanks and
watches as the shells explode around them.

The majority of cameras were static, but two were moved themselves for animation, which will covered in this section. 5.2. Key Frame Animation I have used key frame animation throughout the project for all the objects in my scene. It is achieved by selecting the object you require, selecting the frame at the start of the key frame sequence you want to create and then right clicking on the parameter you want to change and right 9-Dec-03

Figure 5.2.1 After setting a key frame

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clicking on the parameter and choosing Set Key Frame. This associates the frame number with the value of the parameter. Following this, the frame number is changed to either the end of the sequence or an interim frame, and the parameter is changed and again the parameter is right clicked on and Commit Changes is selected. This associates this new frame with the updated parameter. Houdini then extrapolates the changes in the parameters between the key frames and effectively animates the object between the two key points. This process can continue until all the required frames are set. Using the play button at the bottom of the view port, it is possible to preview how well this process has worked in this instance. 5.2.1. Animating the tank The animation of the tank was a simple process, but involved a great deal of separate key frames. The most difficult problem I found was making the movement of the tanks across the desert floor look realistic. To get the tanks to glide across the surface was simple; I set one key frame where I wanted them to start, and a second at the end and the tank quite happily moved between the two. However, this would have looked very much artificial when animated. Since every tank was moving through the animation at some point, I decided to take each tank one at a time. The process I establish for moving the tanks was simple. I reverted back to the first frame of the tanks movement sequence. I moved the tank, using the objects transformation variables, until it sat in a realistic position for the portion of the desert it was above. After I had done this, I advanced 5 frames ahead and repeated the process, and so on, until I reached the last original key frame. When played back it gave the impression of rolling over the sand dunes. The second part of the tank I animated was the movement of the turret and barrel. This was achieved again through simple key framing. When the turret needed turning, I set a key frame at the homed ahead position in the transform added to the turret at the SOP level, a further one at one side then another at the other side. Played back, the turret swung between the three positions smoothly. With the additions of the key frames on the centre position of the barrel, it appeared to contract into the tank when fired before popping out again with a shell. This is not entirely realistic, but added some comic-book animation to the output.

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Modelling and Animation CA

Henry Williams

The final part of the tank that was animated was the tank tracks and wheels. Using mathematical of the form Circumference = 2 x 3.14 x Radius I was able to link the movement of the tank in the a_tank transform to the rotation of the wheels. This copying of linked values is done by right-clicking on the value you want to copy, selecting Copy, then pasting into the relevant field with the Paste Relative Refs command. The same linked values could be used with the movement of the tracks, however this time I was just interested in the distance moved along the ground. I changed the position of the tracks by changing the X axis translation parameter of creep1 to read the translation of along the a_tank Z axis, and then dividing it by 3.14. This gave an approximate speed of movement to match those of the wheels. 5.2.2. Animation of the shells & explosions Since the shells were not self propelled, and they were falling to the ground while also riding the acceleration given to them by the original explosion in the tank I decided that they would have constant acceleration overall. To animate the crashing of the shells in front of the enemy tanks was a simple process. I set, with a key frame, the shells to be 15 on the Y axis above the ground, and then a frame or two after I wanted them to explode set them to be -0.3 on the Y axis effectively under ground. When animated, this provided a smooth fall to earth. To make the explosions occur at the right time I did some testing with key frames on the Birth variable of the Particle SOP. I ended up with a system where about 20 frames before an explosion was required a key frame of 0 was set, then 10 frames before it leapt to 1500, then after another 10 frames back down to 0. This combination gave the effect of a sudden explosion of particles. After some step by step animation (a frame at a time) I was able to calculate exactly when to make the explosion happen. This form of animation for particle systems also proved to work in other cases, including both the tank trail and the round smoke so I employed similar processes there. 5.3. Channel Scoping Channel Scoping is a way of taking a higher level approach to the control over the extrapolation Houdini performs between key frames -

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Modelling and Animation CA

Henry Williams given two or more points there a variety of methods for calculating the rate of change / path to take between them, including constant, Bezier, spline and easeout (which slows the rate of change towards the end).

While developing animation sequences in Houdini, the use of scoping while animating the movement of the tank shells was extensive. To animate a shell, 3 key frames were set; the first was below the ground Figure 5.3.1 Channel scoping and out of view, the second a frame later - was inside the barrel of the tank immediately before firing and third was high in the air some way from the tank. To ensure that the shell did not physically pass through the tank barrel I skipped to the second key frame and then advanced a frame at a time, while having the scope for the Y translation overlaid. When I could see the shell starting to appear through the sides of barrel I altered the position of the third key frame until the shell was back in the barrel this way the interpolation by Houdini is altered. After playback, the movement of the shell now appears inside the barrel all the time till it leaves it. 5.4. Path Animation Path animation was used with cam4 in this project. Following the path created by the key frame animation of the shell fired by tank 1, it was possible to use the camera to follow the shell through the air. This was achieved by first positioning the camera relative to the shell itself. At the object level, Houdini was set to display just cam4 and the shell_emitters1 (the emission from the shell fired from the first allied tank the back of the shell). Using the transformation properties

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of the camera, it was moved to be behind and to the left of the emitter. Finally the Path Object of the camera was set /obj/shell_emitters1. Using the play controls to test it from the cameras view the animation followed that of the shell. To test it more fully, I created a quick render using the OpenGL renderer (called preview_ogl) and animated frames 300 to 400 using cam4. Unfortunately the results were not perfect the camera appeared to shake while moving. However, this was not actually the camera moving poorly; it was the perspective of the shell to the ground that caused it to shake. At this point I decided not to use path animation for this section. 5.5. The Shots The scenes rendered were:-

Scene 1 (uses cam1) Using four key frames, one in front of the
enemy tanks, the next on top of the hill, then facing the first allied tank and finally looking at the two other allied tanks, this camera moved back from the enemy tanks, as they roll forwards, towards the first allied tank which rolls into view, and then rotating of the camera towards the two rear approaching allied tanks.

Scene 2 (uses cam2) The camera sitting on top of the first allied tank
as the turret rotates.

it fires a shell.

Scene 3 (uses cam3) The view from in front of the first allied tank as Scene 4 (uses cam4alt) Using two key frames, one looking at the
tank barrel before firing and the second next to the shell in mid-air, this camera follows the shell through the air as the camera rotates gradually clockwise.

the both fire as well.

Scene 5 (uses cam1alt) The camera looks at the other allied tanks as Scene 6 (uses cam5) While setting up this camera I decided to try a

new way of presenting credits on the side of one the shells as it fell to earth. I knew this was possible in Premiere; I just had to create the pause in the animation. To do this I added two further key frames to the movement of the first shell, and with a switch to a constant rate of change in the channel scope it caused the shell to stop dead in mid-air for about 1 second.

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Modelling and Animation CA

Henry Williams

With this in mind, I created 4 key frames for the movement of cam5 and set the first and last to be looking at the enemy tanks. The middle two were a tight zoomed in shot of the side of the shell. When played back, the animation pauses and the camera seems to move in quickly for a look at the shell. Apart from this, the camera is close up to the enemy tanks and watches as the shells explode around them.

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Modelling and Animation CA 6. Rendering and Post-production

Henry Williams

Rendering and post-production is the process of taking the model from Houdini through to the final video in AVI format. 6.1. Rendering from Houdini The rendering process from Houdini was complex since each scene was being rendered individually, moving cameras, sky and lighting to an appropriate position for each sequence. Rendering around 100 frames at a time at 25% PAL resolution (192x144 pixels) took approximately 25 minutes using two 3GHz networked render boxes. Each sequence was saved in TGA (Targa Graphics Adaptor) format, in the format tank{frame#}.tga. The number padding as specified by the CA requirements was not needed because a newer edition of Adobe Premiere Pro was being used. 6.2. First steps in Premiere After importing each scene into Premiere, a meaningful name was given to each one to aid in the layout of the scenes. Besides the

Figure 6.2.1 A screenshot from Premiere while producing video

animation itself, a production video is made up from titles (for example, credits), transitions between different parts, and audio. While 9-Dec-03 Page 28 of 55

Modelling and Animation CA

Henry Williams

audio is not required as part of the CA, I feel that it adds a lot of atmosphere to the video. Importing images into Premiere is a simple affair; select File Import from the menu, and find the first numbered image from the required sequence, ensuring that the Numbered Stills box is checked. The Premiere window is comprised of four key areas; project (showing imported and exported files), timeline (where the order of said files is organised), the preview window (where media can be previewed) and the sequence window (where the output of the timeline can be previewed). Using these, an effective and impacting video can be produced. 6.3. The scene, titles and credits Since the animation is limited by time (30 seconds for animation in total, and 45 seconds for the video comprising all transitions, titles and animation), I decided that I wanted to keep my titles simple so that they could be displayed for the minimal amount of time yet still have the same impact. A main and 4 cut titles were created in Adobe Photoshop, at the same resolution as the animation, and imported into Premiere. All the titles were created using a simple font, Figure 6.3.1 Main title Tahoma, and used large text to make them easy to read when displayed briefly. Since the final video was intended to sell the toy to executives, I decided to try and create a dramatic select of cuts throughout the video, appropriate for a piece of backing music I had in mind Clubbed to Death by Rob Dougan. Each scene was placed into the timeline, in numerical order, and onto these the cut titles were interspersed. One cut title had to be made to start before a scene had finished since I believed that the scene had been rendered for slightly too many frames and had an inappropriate pause at the end. Scenes 2, 3, 4 and 6 were slowed to 90%, and scene 5 increased to 110% of their original speed to make them fit Figure 6.3.2 Adding appear more realistic at 25 fps and keep credits with the overall progression of the animation. This was accomplished using the Speed/Duration function available after right clicking on the scene in question on the time line. 9-Dec-03 Page 29 of 55

Modelling and Animation CA

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For the credits of the video, the pause created earlier in the animation stage, as the shell come back to earth, was a perfect opportunity to add a written by note to the side of one of the shells. To do this Premiere was used to advance frame by frame to the point that the shell was in full screen, as shown in figure 6.2.2. This was an approximate 1 second pause in the animation. Here a title was created in project window and then dragged to the current position in the timeline. After again advancing frame by frame to the last frame of the pause, the duration of the title was extended to this marker. Playing the animation back through the preview screens showed that the credit title now merged seamlessly with the animation itself. 6.4. Adding Transitions Transitions allow visual effects during the change between two parts of a timeline, be it a title and animation or some other form of media. The finished effects gives a more professional and natural flow to the changes in the final output. Transitions were added to the timeline by dragging appropriate ones from the transitions list, a tab in the project window. For each of the three middle cut titles, an Additive Dissolve transition was used. Once the scene had finished, the image cut to black and then the title faded into view. This was a simple unobtrusive effect that helped build the suspense by breaking up the action. To work correctly, this transition was attached to the start edit point of the title in question. The main title also used the same dissolve, but instead, the transition was attached to the start of the first scene itself. This enabled the title to remain on the screen longer, even while the animation was continuing in the background. 6.5. Final Output Once the timeline was organised and set up correctly the final stage of work in Premiere was to render the finish product into a video file. The file is exported using the File Export function. For the output, the following options were selected, aside from the default: 9-Dec-03 Compressor: Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V2 Frame Size: 192x144 Frame Rate: 25 Page 30 of 55

Modelling and Animation CA Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixels (1.0)

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Figure 6.3.2 Settings before output

The resulting file was saved to disc as Tank-MSMPEG4cs00helw.avi specifying what the file is, what codec is used and who the author is.

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Modelling and Animation CA 7. Conclusion

Henry Williams

I was extremely pleased with the overall outcome of the animation. The extensive planning, including storyboarding and scripting enabled me to produce an animation that I believe meets, and in some areas surpasses all the requirements of the original specification. The final rendering process in Houdini went smoothly, and few last minutes changes had to be made. It would have been possible to spend endless hours improving the animation, tweaking variables here and there and adding more detail to the objects in the scene. In the time available, the final video is a good representation of the work I have put in at the development stage. However, there is always room for improvement. One of the main areas that I wanted to work on was the shadows in the scene. When looking at the tanks in some circumstances, they appeared slightly unnatural sitting on the desert surface. While it would have been possible to add these on during the development, they would have caused a very large increase in required rendering time which would have made it impractical for a small scale project such as this. Secondly, I would have liked to produce a variety of vehicles besides the single tank model that I used. Since the story features an enemy and allied side it would have been appropriate here to have used a different model on each side. As before though, time was the constraining factor; given an extended project cycle I would have also investigated adding soldiers to the scene. While the smoke and dust clouds seen in my final video look relatively realistic, I believe this was helped partly by the low resolution the CA required. Given broadcast quality rendering, these particle effects would clearly not look accurate. I think that developing an effective and more detailed cloud model would improve the overall quality and feel of the animation. Finally, while not really relevant to the output, I think using path animation for animation of the tanks and shells would have saved me some time during my animation construction. I found the use of multiple key frames very time consuming I believe that if I had created a path for the shell and tank to follow, the animation process would have been a lot more efficient. I have learnt a great deal from the project work, including a detailed understanding of the principles of object design, spatial coordinate systems and key frame animation. While the majority of the work was in Houdini I have enjoyed working with Premiere since it has given me experience of organising and rendering a final output, along with sound and visual effects.

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Modelling and Animation CA 8. References

Henry Williams

[1] Department of Computer Science University of Exeter, COM3404 Modelling and Animation Continuous Assessment, http://tinyurl.com/wtb2, 15th October 2003 (accessed 27th November 2003) [2] Aggie Horticulture, New Mexican Agave, http://aggiehorticulture.tamu.edu/, Unknown (accessed 7th November 2003) [3] Shodor Education Foundation Inc., Dictionary, http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/dictionary/f.html, 2003 (accessed 8th December 2003) [4] Google Inc., Google Image Search, http://images.google.co.uk/, Unknown (accessed 7th November 2003)

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Modelling and Animation CA Appendix A Script Name: Tank wars

Henry Williams

Animation opens to show several enemy tanks approaching the camera. They are dark, dangerous tanks. The pictures moves back and we find the camera is sitting on top of a gentle hill looking out over a desert like environment. There is a low rumble of noise, with the tanks now looking like indistinct dark shapes in distance. Haze and smoke comes up from the shapes. A lowly desert shrub sits in the middle of the vista. The sound grows more intense, and from the left a friendlier looking American tank rolls in from the left of the camera, the barrel of the gun and the tracks of the tank can also be seen. The camera pulls back and pans around to the left to show many, many more tanks moving into position. The camera switches to a view on top the front tanks barrel. A shell is fired from the tank and it shakes with the recoil. The camera follows behind the shell. The two other friendly tanks then fire in succession. Looking at the enemy, we see the shells fall to the group and explode, missing the tanks completely. Fade to black.

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Modelling and Animation CA Appendix B Storyboards

Henry Williams

CUT FROM: Toys4U presents - Tank Attack The video starts with a camera showing 4 black camouflaged tanks rolling quickly over sand dunes, kicking up sand. The camera draws back faster than they approach. As the camera moves it begins climbing and eventually you find the camera looking down at the tanks from the top of a hill.

From the left a large green camouflage tank comes into view, showing its large turret, barrel and moving tracks. Some dust from behind the tank catches up with it once it stops. From the camera view, the other tanks look small off in the distance.

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Panning around to the left, the camera brings the main green camouflage tank into view coming to a brief stop looking directly at it.

The camera pulls back from the view of the tank and climbs while panning to the right. Coming into view are two tanks following the first and the cameras shows them while they come to a stop, creating their own dust clouds. The camera ends vertical above the position in slide 2, and facing in the opposite direction. CUT TO: Old foes

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Modelling and Animation CA

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The view switches to a camera sitting a top of the turret of the gun, slightly further back so as to show the back of the tank. The turret swings to the rights and to the left, then slightly back to the right, pointing at the other tanks. The barrel then rises slightly.

combat

CUT TO: ready for

The view switches again to show the tank from the front, to the left, with the camera looking upwards to the tank. The barrel suddenly jerks backwards and then forwards and through a cloud of smoke a shell flies, with golden casing. The shell flies off the screen to the left, climbing into the air. CUT TO: and utter destruction

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Modelling and Animation CA

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The view changes to that of a camera swinging through the air, following the path of the shell. Items can be seen being passed on the ground. From the back of the shell a developing contrail can be seen. From an initial behind view, the camera ends on the back left side of the shell showing the contrail in full.

The view changes to that of a camera swinging through the air, following the path of the shell. Items can be seen being passed on the ground. From the back of the shell a developing contrail can be seen. From an initial behind view, the camera ends on the back left side of the shell showing the contrail in full.

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Modelling and Animation CA

Henry Williams

The next scene shows a tight shot of the four enemy tanks sitting, loitering waiting for something to happen. From the left, one-byone, three shells enter the picture and rapidly begin to fall to the ground. The camera remains still. Include credits on side on first shell, pausing animation and zooming camera to display text.

From the same shot, three huge explosions happen one after another kicking up a lot of dust and debris. The tanks however are not harmed. CUT

almost!

TO:

well

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Modelling and Animation CA Appendix C SOP & POP Networks

Henry Williams

Tank SOP Network

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Modelling and Animation CA

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Basic Shell SOP Network

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Shell Emitter SOP Network

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Shell Display SOP Network

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Shell Particle Model SOP Network

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Shell Contrail POP Network

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Ground SOP Network

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Sky SOP Network

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Modelling and Animation CA

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Explosion SOP Network

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Plant SOP Network

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Modelling and Animation CA Appendix D SHOPs Network This is a list of the shaders that have been used in my project.
Shader name
v_dented desert

Henry Williams

Used with
Various to roughen surfaces. Across the entire ground object and on particle operations where for dust effect. Most surfaces on allied tanks. All tank wheels. Casing of tank shell.

Type
VEX Fractal Dented VEX Decal

Parameters
Mid range amplitude and noise roughness. Used desert JPEG as texture map. Used camouflage JPEG as texture map. Dark grey diffuse and black reflection. Brown/green diffuse and green/brown specular and reflection. Light grey diffuse and dark grey reflection. Used clouds JPEG as texture map. Dark green diffuse and dark grey reflection. Dark red dot colour, yellow base colours and green/yellow specular. British Racing Green diffuse. Used camouflage JPEG as texture map. Light grey diffuse and specular. Dark grey diffuse and reflection.

camouflage wheel copper

VEX Decal VEX Metal VEX Metal

silver clouds allied_greens plant_stamen

Front section of shell. Sky sphere to give environmental effect. Surfaces of tank not covered with camouflage such as the barrel and tracks. Inside of plant the plant stamen.

VEX Metal VEX Decal VEX Metal VEX Polka Dots

plant_leaf enemy_camouflage smoke enemy_grey

Leaves of the plant. Most surfaces on enemy tanks. Particle effect from tank shells. Surfaces of tank not covered with enemy_camouflage such as the barrel and tracks.

VEX Clay VEX Decal VEX Decal VEX Metal

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Modelling and Animation CA Appendix E 100% PAL Images

Henry Williams

Image 1 The Tank (ready to fire on the enemy)

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Image 2 The Shell (flying through the air with a contrail)

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Image 3 The Scene (overall view as tanks approach)

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Modelling and Animation CA Appendix F Rough Work Tank Drawing

Henry Williams

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Modelling and Animation CA

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Animation Frame List

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