Animating the camera and rendering

I had to set the cameras according to the story board so i had a set up of multiple cameras in each scene. The lens parameters were changed to make it look like it was from the eye's of a smaller object. In many scenes, only still images were required. These wer rendered out at a high resolution because they would need to be zoomed in and out in after effects. For scenes with video clips, i used the PAL DV setting of 720 by 576. The videos were rendered as an image sequence instead of video clips. This was because if the software crashed while mid-rendering, we would carry off from the frame we left off. The software crashed many times. The renders wer saved as PNG files to retain opacity and also because they render at a great file quality. Some objects were rendered on thier own but to a certain camera movement so the teddy can hide/run behind objects.

Creating the outside environment

To create the outside environment, I first tried to apply textures on a plane and place them just outside the window. This worked for the window behind the bed but did not work with the window to the side.This was because the direction of the light outside was at a different angle from the side window so it did not light up properly. Other lights placed next to the plane did not work either as the skylight was too powerful outside the room and made the other lights obsolete.

Then I tried to use an environmental map with an image of the skies. This however, did not work with our scene. It was not visible what so ever. So then i decided to try another method. Where a Dome is built around the room using a large sphere. The texture is applied to the dome and you should be able to see the dome outside the window. This however did not work either as the dome covered the global illuminations and caused the scene to be rendered black (no light). So i decided to test it by cutting off the top of the dome so it was like a ring around the room as can be seen below. This worked perfectly.

Grainy walls using daylight system

After using the Skylight and sunlight system, i encountered a problem. The light was not distributed evenly in the room. This made some corners of the room look very grainy as there was no light to compensate it.

Changing the values of the daylight system to compensate the dark parts made the evenly lit parts of the room very brightly lit. To a point where it was hard to see definitions on objects.
I decided to use scrap that idea and use photometric lights with the same colour temperature as the skylight and sunlight systems and put them close to the wall to light them up evenly. the result is below:

Daylight Systems in 3DS max

Today I was working with lighting in 3Ds max. For one of the scenes, we wanted a daylight system. I looked up and followed a few tutorials on daylight lighting off the Internet on test rooms to see what they would look like. However, I encountered a problem. Many error messages would appear when I tried to render out the scene as a single image or a video. The program would either crash or shut down. I tried to move computers, however, the problem re-occurred. I then contacted a technician and he could not get to the bottom of the problem either. His advice was to just try to light it from the beginning as it would be quicker. I got a single picture out of the lighting set- up (below) and i think although detailed, it looks unlit or a night time scene instead of the day time scene.

I used another lighting process the second time round. This included a skylight and sunlight systems. These provided ample light and produced a very dreamy effect, exactly what we wanted. it used radiosity based lighting and the light coming in through the window was very effective.

We used still images from this scene in some of our animation, but when I rendered out a video, it was very jumpy. This I was told was because radiosity rendering calculates the light differently on each frame. This makes the shadows chance, therefore making the scene very jumpy and grainy. I showed it to two 3D tutors who could not resolve the problem.

Modeling more objects

I modelled some objects today to complete the room. This included a "fuzzy felts" box, a mirror, and a chest. To model the Mirror, I made a plane. I then added a texture to it. The texture comprised of a ray trace reflection and also the blinn basic parameters were edited.

For the Fuzzy felts box, i made a square box and converted it to an editable poly. I extruded the box until it looked like a games box. I then dupliated it and made it slightly larger so that the copy would act as a lid to the games box. A texture was then made by Sareea for the box