Update on progress of the animation

During the early stages of the creation of the animation I have encountered a number of issues that I have had to overcome. Initially moving the siege engines up and over the hill has proven more difficult than I originally thought. Also finding the correct camera angle has also proven difficult to create a good scene. I am also now considering adding a scene that is a close up of the wheels on the siege engine in order to convince the audience that the wheels are spinning.

Finally I have decided to split the animation up into a number of scenes to be rendered separately. These separate scenes will then be added together using windows live movie maker, with some added background music to set the scene.

Creating the scene for the animation

Once all the models were fully completed, the scene of the battlefield needed to be created. The first image below shows a plane that has been edited using soft selection to create the hill and to add the bumps and dips in the ground to make the scene look more realistic. The plane then had a grass texture placed over that had to be scaled down into small tiles so that the blades of grass weren’t too big. The background was then created using a simple box with an image of a field being used as the texture. Finally three of the wall models were place together to create the walled structure that the siege engines would be attacking.

The next image below shows the siege engine being added to the scene. The siege engine then needed to be placed on the floor, so it looked natural on top of the grass (not hovering over it or halfway through the ground). Also the siege engine had to be scaled down so it was the correct size in proportion to the wall.

Finally using an array the siege engine was copied three times.

 The finally image below shows the view that one of the cameras would be using.

Texture references:

The Grass

j-m-s, n.d. Grass is Grass. [image online] Available at: <http://designresourcebox.com/grass-is-grass/> [Accessed 17 April 2012].

The Background image

buxton field centre, n.d. From the Field Centre looking towards the paddock. [image online] Available at: <http://www.buxtonfieldcentre.co.uk/> [Accessed 17 April 2012].

Making the siege engines bridge upright

Before the animation could be started all the pieces needed to be organised and put in place. Firstly the image below shows the siege engine with its top half in the upright position. The original model of the siege engine had the bridge down (this would have been fine for the end of the animation but the bridge has to be upright to deploy on the wall later). In order to pivot the bridge I grouped the top half of the animation together and then the bottom half of the animation together. Then I moved the pivot point for the bridge to the correct position and then rotated the top half of the model. After a bit of tweaking to the position of the top half, the bridge was in the correct position and was ready to use in the animation.

Updated Storyboard

The image below shows an updated and more detailed version of the animations storyboard. This new storyboard adds terrain and isn’t focused around one siege engine, but rather a battlefield with a number of siege engines attacking a wall. The terrain for this animation involves a downwards slope with the wall at the bottom of the hill. The animation will show the siege engine roll up to the brow of the hill with the camera then panning outwards to reveal the entire battlefield. The siege engines will then make their approach towards the wall with one or two siege engines being destroyed along the way. The animation will also have a large number of arrows being fired at the siege engines. The animation will then end with the siege engines then deploying on the wall.