Animation Evaluation.

For the Virtual Enviroment project we were asked to create a haunted roller coaster ride. From the beginning i was struggling to come to terms with 3ds max and spent hours upon hours reading tutorials and watching video's to enable me to get to grips with the program. Not only was I struggling with Animating my ride, 3ds max kept crashing when I attempted to render it or change anything significantly, which in turn made the program incredibly frustrating to use and dedicate time too. Although once i had finally managed to come to terms with the program, it gave me a huge sense of achievement when the final animation was complete and I really feel that given the concequences of multiple crashes and error's with rendering that I have created something quite good.

The main concept for my animation was based around what I am afraid of. Therefore I made the design claustrophrobic and dark, a fear alot of people can relate to, and tried to avoid creating open spaces where possible. I didn't want to just have skeleton's jumping out at you, I wanted to create an atmosphere, using light and sound to the best of my ability. I also didnt want to just make the user jump, I wanted to give them a sense of impending doom, which I tried to establish with two of my scare scenes by having the walls close in with spikes. In regards to the entrance of my rollercoaster ride, I kept the design simple so it was as if it was an abandoned warehouse, that if you would choose to enter, you would be doing so at your own peril. The materials I used for the models were quite grungy/dungeon oriented, with dirty concrete walls inside and green discoloured brick on the outside. Which helps create an atomopshere for the user. Throughout the process of the design I was documenting existing haunted roller coaster rides, which inevitably helped me establish an idea of which way I wanted to go with the design. Which in turn enabled to get my idea's down on paper to use as a reference when it came to modeling in 3ds max.

This, by a long way, was the most challenging project I have done so far and really tested my ability to learn. Each step in the design process required a large amount of work, wether it be sketching idea's or material mapping on 3ds max. I feel there is alot of thing's I could of done better, the main being the cart design which I feel I could of been alot more creative with if I had the time. I also feel that with such a time demanding project your time management skills have to be good in order for you to maximise your design's potential. Unfortunately I underestimated the time required so I dont feel like it was the best of my ability. Having said that I really enjoyed creating 3d models, applying materials and creating sketches of the object before I modeled them and the experience will aid me in future projects.

Animation - Haunted dungeon

Haunted dungeon - Animation project from tom stockbridge on Vimeo.