Day 14

Last day of week 2..The animation is now pass down to be lighted and composited..Changes will be made on the fly..

So far facing problems with shot 3 as the helicopter is falling too slowly...Increased the mass and magnitude,Also extended part 1 of shot 3 to overlap with part 2 to create a smoother transition..

This is the original,if you notice,there is a slight pause before it drops.

This is the improved version,there is now no pause and the drop is much more smooth.

Day 11-13

I started on the animation for shot 2 and 4..
For shot 4,I started to use the Destroy rig..

This is the animation for shot 2..Basically to give a better flow between the shots.

Day 7-Day 10

For these past few days,I had to touch up alot on the animation for shot 3..We decided to use the "Realistic" version..

As we could not achieve the rotor blur to simulate fast rotation..I actually created a fake rotor blur in Photoshop

With this I created a sphere and applied it as a texture..

Day 6

Resumed work on the animation of the book.Trying our best to finish Shot 3 by today or tomorrow.
Made two version of animation for the helicopter.An exaggerated version and a "realistic" version from references.

Exaggerated version:

This is done to make the 3seconds less stale but due to the short amount of frames in between,the animation is not smooth and to fast to make it natural.

"Realistic":

To make the animation less stale but yet smooth,we decided to make the helicopter to drop straight down with a wobble.

Also we had to separate the shot into 2..This is due to the fact that after an object is being introduced to gravity,it cannot be animated.Hence,Frame 1-60 is being animated..Then starting from the end position,Gravity is introduced.

Day 4

Started to create the 3D model page for the book in shot 3.

The purpose of this is to allow interaction between the book(live footage) and the helicopter(3D).By doing this,it also allows the Helicopter to land on an object rather than making it look as if its floating.

To start with,I found a guide on how to use nCloth to create the page.Link Here:Click Here

After testing,this is a most likely the movement of the page that I want.This movement is to simulate wind coming from the helicopter when its about to land.

I also tested out Rigid body to create a collision between the helicopter and the book page.

Day 3

Started with the rigging and test animation for the helicopter.We also did a re-shoot in a different location.
Made two rigs.

Movement Rig:

This rig has 3 simple controls for the basic movements of the helicopter.Move,Rotate for the whole helicopter.X Rotate for the Main rotor, Z Rotate for the back Rotor

Destroy Rig:

This rig is to allow the breaking of parts of the helicopter.Each control gives complete movement of each part that will most likely break/fall off.

Day 2

Today we started to film our shots and also started on the helicopter model.

Initially I planned to model out the whole helicopter but as we change our plan to include a close up shot of the Heli,the amount of detail for the helicopter has to be more precise.Therefore we decided to download a free model for our helicopter.


We chose a OH-6A Helicopter for our model.

We found a free model online with sufficient amount of detail for the model. Link:Click Here

Since Mr Ron allowed us to use the model,I could now focus on the rigging and animation of the helicopter.
This also allowed Brian and Kok chuen to start trying out the lighting and texturing of the model.

I aim to complete the rigging and animation by the end of these week so that I could help out with the Lighting and Rendering which is the key to make our shot believable.