Wednesday 6 May 2009

Conclusion

After completing my idents, when I look back at what I knew about how to use the programme 3D Max, im happy with the end results. Although there are a few slight problems in the idents, I think they would make successfull gap fillers between programmes. I really enjoyed the module and learing new techniques on Max which I will utilise in the future.

Tuesday 5 May 2009

Final Ident 3 - Volley Ball

Final Ident 2 - Golf

Final Ident 1 - Cricket

Sound for the Idents

When it came to the sound needed for each ident, I wanted to use actual sound clips taken from each sport. The easiest way to do this was to take pre-recorded sound from a video displayed on YouTube.com.

To find the correct videos, I used a simple search with each of the sports as a keyword. From the videos which were found in the search, I chose one from each list which best resembled the sound I was looking for and using Adobe Premiere, put the sound form the videos together with the idents to achieve the end result.

The links to the original videos are as follows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT32qrwGWew    -    volleyball ident

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SRDB-KCx_w&feature=PlayList&p=7D0DE3DC8A9454E9&index=40   -   golf ident

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wSIzbSQ_Kw   -   cricket ident

Ident 3 - Volley ball

4. At the same time as the ball begins to slow down, the Sky Sports logo moves onto the screen to complete the sequence of events and end the ident.
3. For the animation part, the volley ball appears over the net and bounces on the sand before stopping in the frame. This was created using Reactor which due to the un -level surface was a hard task to master.
2. The beach scene itself is primarily contructed of two planes with different material properties to create the sand and sea effect. I chrome material was also made by altering the light qualities on a Raytrace material. The net was created by applying the same UVW map to a plane which, due to the black background of the map, made the blackness transparent. Making the plane 2-sided gave the perfect volleyball net.
1. For the final ident I decided to create a volley ball style scene set on a beach. I created a volleyball by munipulating the sides of a cube to keep flat surfaces yet making the object rounded. Then a mesh smooth was applied.

Ident 2 - Golf

4. The finale of the ident sees the golf ball come to rest on the 'o' of the word Sports. This gives a purpose to the design and also brings the animation and channel name together for the viewer.
3. As the golf ball bounces on the surface it rolls towards a Sky Sports logo which is cut into the floor using a boolean effect. The camera which originally was in a fixed position watching the bouncing animation, is by now panning around the logo and ball with a focal point fixed in the centre.
2. I wanted the ball to bounce on a grassy looking surface so I applied a grass texture to a plane and created the animation in Reactor.


1. When creating the golf themed ident, the first proccess was to create the golf ball itself. I did this by manipulating a sphere by converting it to an editable poly and beveling hexagonal section of it inwards to create the desired effect. Next I added a mesh smooth and an anistrophic shine to complete the golf ball look.

Monday 4 May 2009

Testing Camera Settings

Heres a test of following camera paths in an animation, from this I learnt to direct a camera's movement and field of vision which will prove usefull when creating the final idents.

Ident 1 - Cricket

The finished ident shows the Sky sports logo on the bails as the camera pans out the ball comes into view hitting the stumps and knocking off the bails shortly followed by the Sky Sports logo.

5. The final part of the animation was the addition of the Sky Sports logo which appears at the end of the scene. It comes through the plane and rests in the centre of the animation as a focal point. To create the transparent effect, I applied a Raytrace aspect to the material and increased the specular and glossiness level.
4. Next, using Reactor, three seperate animations were created which were the movement of the cricket ball, the movement of the stumps and the movement of the bails. After being created, all three were correctly aligned to make the scene look as authentic as possible in the aspect of real life.
3. The next step was the creation on the background. The sky is an applied bitmap in the environments settings of 3D Max and the grass is a bitmap applied to a plane.
2. The stumps in the cricket scene were created by stretching a sphere, with the top of the stump shaped using a boolean effect which I then copied. The bails were created using simple cylinders which were manipulated to give their shape
1. Firstly I created the ball to be used in the animation which in this case was a cricket ball. To create the leathery effect on the surface a bump map was used using a bitmap, after also applying diffused colour for added effect.

Initial Ideas

After creating the mood boards I started to look into the range of sports displayed on the Sky Sports network in more depth, not just as an activity, but in the aspect of animation.

I decided the most acurate animation available in sport is the moving of a ball, which is use in more sports advertised. To do this I would have to use Reactor in 3D Max to achieve a realistic object motion.

I also decided to look at the existing idents of the Sky Sports channels which consisted primarily of bold, clear images presented well with a range of camera movements. To honour this I decided to include the use of cameras in each animation to create a sense of motion and movement throughout each scene.

The final aspect of the ident ideas was individuality. I didn't want my idents to be just a plain animation showing a movement related to sport. To provide a personal touch to the idents, each design is set up to be a sectioned area of each sport, which meant there was no need for a background on any of the idents, keeping the focus on the animation rather than its surroundings.

I feel that all three of these aspects combined (spherical animation, moving scene cameras and diagnosed section of area) combined with the display of the recognised Sky Sports logo in each ident, would make a successfull combination in creating idents which would work should they be developed into an advertising campaign in the future.