Recontruction of Idea

We had a meeting with our supervisor and discussed the video fly through that we had posted earlier. We explored the ideas of changing it from a simple fly through to something with a bit more definition.

We got chatting and after I explained that the idea originally came from a dream I had, we then thought up some kind of scenario where we could make it appear like it was a dream. The person having that dream was the one to be sacrificed. In this dream the person would be walked to their death by warriors. The only problem we had with this was trying to incorporate a fly through camera in certain areas; this was so we could still display the landscape in more detail. So we weren’t that keen on cutting out the video fly through parts. Our supervisor also touched on the idea of it being a dream where a person is visiting their past life. We then developed this so that it could include voice over speaking of what they felt and did moments before being sacrificed. At the meeting we left it at that.

After the meeting me and will were full of idea so we went away to expand on them. We thought that the idea of having it as a dream would be somewhat corny and would not give enough of an ending. We then though maybe a animation of a previously scarified person in the form of a spirit could give us the best of both worlds e.g. both first person camera and fly through. We went on further and came refined our ideas to be, a spirit reliving its liast moments befoee be sacrificed and at times trying to escape by flying off out of its mortasl body, but opnly to get dragged back down. We also though that we could include a voice over expain how he felt reliving his death over and over again. The voice o er also helps aid the camera flying off and showoing some of the city landscape as , at any time when a camera might veer off, we could explain why with speech e.g the person could say “ i felt like i was drifting away from the terror”, this way it would not seem so unexpected and give the views more of an insight.



By having it as a spirit we could incorporate parts where the camera is shot in first person view (the person reliving their last moment) and be able to have the camera veer off to include parts of the landscape(as the spirit would try and escape it last moments but would be dragged back down). By having the two camera aspects and a voice over we have added another level to our animation and given it more purpose.

The voice over would speak of how the person felt as he approached his death again, and again. He would also mention that everything was so familiar, and how he would try and escape his mortal body, and each time getting further away. But inevitably the ending is always the same.

Here is a mock up of a script that we have designed




After the script was written we planned out the camera route and applied a vocal to it. This was our first result.

Designs And Work Done To Date

11th October 09 - Tom Litton

So far we have been working out what to encorperate in our designs. We have seen the main city area and noticed it misses some featuers that we had orginaly declared in our breif.
So we have decided to add more featuers, so even thou its will be a replica to the original city, it will have more featuers to make the fly through more intresting.

I will be designing the city and creating it in maya. So i decided to get some thing down on Maya to see what I will be up against, so i made a mock up fo the city.

Here is a draft of the city that I have designed.



I have further deveoped this to include the rest of the landscape and added a camera fly through, showing our first draft of the camera route and speed and motion. This will be included into part of our presnetation and be used to gather feedback from our supervisor.

Will Moore

Here are some sketches ive made which i may use as references to model my characters with.

I spent alot of time trying to keep everything in proportion in order to create a realistic looking person.



Aztec warrior sketch - just getting a feel for clothing and armourTo get a feel for their clothing and armour etc I produced some front on sketches of some Aztec warriors. Again, i was trying to keep the proportions as realistic as possible.


Sketch of an Aztec man: The Aztec warriors would wear helmets shaped like an Eagle with feathers attached to them
Sketching the characters helps me get a better feel for how my final models should look

Research

Primary Images of the desired Town and Architecture we wish to Design
THe following images were gathered from a set of articals from :


AZTEC ARCHITECTURE by MANUEL AGUILAR-MORENO, Ph.D.

And

From the searies Unsolved History: Aztec The Temple Of Blood


The City of Tenochtitlan




The Inner City (what we are focusing on)




What the city might of looked like


The Main Temple - The Temple Of Mayor





Living Huts





Farming Lands


Aztec Symbols and Statues

Toltecular
Mask of Death and Rebirth



Coatlicue - The mother of Gods - Who gave birth to the moon



Aztec Calender


A Rack of Skulls in Center of the city


Calender Featuered At the bottom of the temple of Mayor



Trading areas and the common lay out





Character Design Progress 20/10/2009:

I've been researching the Aztec people over the last weekend trying to find out what each member of society might have worn.

As im going to be modelling people from scratch i have also been researching peoples anatomy, body proportions and model topology.

Here are some drawings and 3D models of other Aztec related characters.

This is a troll from the game World of Warcraft - although it may not be an Aztec (or human!) they do have very similar armour and decoration, i specifically like tattoos on the body with the large blocky, wooden armour.

Below is a piece of work enititled "Aztec Priest". It was made using Maya, ZBrush and Photoshop. It's quite a detailed picture, i would like to aim for this level of realism in my work.


Here is another very impressive 3D model of an Aztec warrior. I like the shape of the face i think it looks very authentic and true to the Aztec race. The skin and shading is very detailed. I dont think this level of detail is achievable in the given time frame.

Aztec warrior: Note the feathers, helmet, cloak and cloth.




SCREEN SHOTS OF FILM

3D Animations Of simular Projects

We also decided to focus on animations a like to our own, this was to compare and see what we would be up against. We found some very good examples and have been influenced by them.

Aztec Temple
This is very much an animation of the same temple we want to animate, this shows a rough untextuered lay out of the inner city. We are confident we can reach this level of detail and go one step further.

This was created by a software analysis who undertakes 3D modeling as a hobby. So it we expect to deveop our a lot better than this one.

High resollution animation
This animation provides a very good scenary and we wish to gain the same kind of level as this.

Aztec - HQ
Uploaded by EESB. - Discover more animation and arts videos.

Here is a still that they rendered

This was created by an indivudal in a small business called Eight Eyed Sea Bass. THe individual was a very talented modeler. The animation contains an impressive 250 million polygons.
The scene was lit using a very realistic program called Global Illumination, which we are lookinginto to using.
For more information about this small animation they have provided information their blog

The Real Deal

The following animation was taken from the searies, Aztecs The Temple of Blood.
THi sis very much what we are looking for in terms of landscape, modeling and camera fly through. We found this relates hugly to what we are trying to achieve. The only aspect it does lack, and we wish to include, is animated people.

This was made by a team, and is a good few years old, but it is still very much an impressive piece. We wish to attain this level of modeling and even more. Due to having many little animations through out the the fly through we cant spend all the time on the apprenace of the landscape, as the organic side of the project along witht the anmation will prove to be time consuming.

Aztecs 1487

July - Joining forces

In July Thomas Litton and Will Moore decided to join forces as they both realised that they could produce a much better final year project if they worked together rather doing it alone. Since they were both keen to do 3D animations they began to develop an idea together where interests were a like and any possible conflicts were reduced. The partnership meant that they could embark on a more in depth and detailed 3D animation than they could have achieved alone. Due to their late partnership agreement, they were only able to develop ideas from the end of July onwards.

August Final Project Idea

During August the team discussed the possible ideas for the 3D animation and came to the conclusion of doing an Aztec landscape. When the idea had been resolved the team then decided develop their thoughts. They had a lengthy meeting and decided that they would be doing a camera fly though of a landscape which would include animations of the Aztec people carrying out their everyday activities, this would then conclude with a sacrifice at the top of the famous temple of the sun. This sequence was chosen as it would provide a good idea which isn’t the usual subject of a 3D animation as a final year project and would show a good balance between organic and inorganic models along with animation.

They also decided at this point that one team member would do the architecture, one would design the human models and both team members would animate the relevant characters

They then wrote up an A4 page description which sums up, in basic, the main course of the animation. This was then provided to their supervisor to gather feedback.

Project Brief – Aztecs 1487

The feedback that was gathered from the supervisor made it clear that it would be a lot of work, mainly due to the many characters being animated, and the many different points of interest that the camera will pass over.

August / September

The next step was to start some research into the Aztecs themselves. We each had an image in our heads as to what their buildings and characters looked like, but we needed more in depth images to give us a better insight into the Aztecs.

The research also involved looking at animations both by professionals and students that relate to our project, and comparing them to see what is achievable and what we are up against.