Assignment 3: Action!

Due at class, November 17.

Using one or more original 3D scenes, generate three animations, each at least 120 frames in length.

Advice

We'll be covering relevant Maestri videos on animation from November 3-17. Please also review chapters 8 and 14-16 in Boardman.

Design specifications

The first of your movies will be a fly-through: Move the camera over or through a virtual terrain. The more interesting things in this terrain, the better.

The second movie might be called a fly-by: The camera does not change its location, though it does follow an object that approaches, passes, and moves into the distance.

In your third movie, at least three elements or aspects of the scene must change over the course of the movie. Perhaps you simply have three moving bodies; perhaps you also change the lighting; perhaps you experiment with space warping to create effects like grass waving, simulating the action of wind.

Some good news: you may use borrowed or imported meshes for this project. Consider using assets from your earlier work. Or there's always Turbosquid.

Finally, you MUST include a brief description of your movies, sent to me in e-mail. Indicate how each movie satisfies the assignment (i.e., what things move or change), and any effects or tricks of which you are especially proud.

Technical specifications

If possible, render your movie at 400 x 300 pixels. Smaller resolutions may be used if you are absolutely unable to render in reasonable time.

Save your animations in AVI format. The file naming convention is yourLastName.assn4.movieX.avi, where "X" is a number from 1 to 3.

I will accept work on removable media or by FTP to your personal folder on student-iat. If you submit via FTP, notify me in e-mail.

For the required e-mail description, please send only one piece of mail covering all three of your movies.