22 months, 1,357 hours, 30 people, 2 ladders, 1 still camera, 288,000 jelly beans

My finished Animation!

FINALLY finished my haunted ride animation project :) I'm really happy with the outcome! Feedback pleasee!

Little video to introduce my haunted ride

The video is of the front of the building of my haunted ride to show what I have done for the entrance. This will be at the beginning of my ride video to make it longer and introduce the ride :)

VIDEO YET TO COME

My blog is gonna be a bit muddled up. Sorry!

Finally encoded my animation after it spent 37 hours rendering! Here is my test video :)

From watching the video I picked up a series of things that needed to be changed. I felt that some aspects of my ride were very bare. So i've added a couple of things in!

A blood splat to the entrance wall.

More spider webs in the spider room

Fuck my life.

I actually want to cry.

Animation is almost finished!

Just got to render my animation, which will take 16 hours. Oh god. Soooo happy with the turnout of it :)

Just got to alter a couple of bits n bobs. But this is practically my finished piece! Gonna start finding some sounds and get some cool music :) Yaaaay!

Storyboard!

I missed Friday's seminar because I was poorlyyyy, so I've caught up with the work and made this storyboard :)

I've just included the main things in my ride. There will be little bits n bobs dotted around, but this just shows the key parts of my ride.

Note to self:

Things I need to finish:

• Make a swinging pendulum
• Make a spiders web
• Sort the camera out
• Do the entrance
• Think of a couple more props to dot around
• Flickering lights for some candles/chandelier

Got quite a bit to do but I'm almost there! :D Hurrah!

Almost there!

Added some trees and some creepy lookin' fog. Added 2 main lights. One to illuminate the clown face to make it stand out and one that lights up infront of the cart to create shadows as it goes past props. 

This shows how I've added the fog. Had to get Roma's help but I played around with it until I was happy with the effect :)

This is just to show off my trees. 

The 2 ghosts on my roof are just pictures! I wanted a simpler way of modelling props and was told to do it this way. The next image shows how I did it.

The 2 planes have opacity maps that allows the images to be shown and the rest to be see through.

This is a view of my grave yard on the roof along with my scary trees and my lighting! All the shadows help to add to the spooky effect!

This is a splat of slime I had added on the floor. There are also drops of slime that drop from the roof as the cart goes past it. 

These are 3 spiders I have made that drop from the roof. This is my second scare scene of the ride and with the lighting (top left) the shadows really do look pretty creepy! Eww spiders!

A shadow monster that I have created has been made the same way as my ghosts further up. I really like how it's all dark and mysterious. You don't really know what it is as it approaches which adds to the scary effect.

This just shows how my shadow monster looks! 

Overall I am really pleased with my progress. I'm just starting to get the hang of using 3Ds Max and I'm actually sad it's nearly the end of Animation! I've loved this project and feel that I have learnt an awful lot about the software :)

Weeee, more work!

Made it so the tunnel looks as if it's gonna lead into the clown's mouth. The last thing someone wants to do is get eaten by a big scary clown! I also got rid of the tunnel and made a new one. The last one wasn't exactly big enough to fit the cart through.

For the part where my cart spirals up to the upper level, I have made a giant spider! I want to make some little ones drop from the ceiling to be part pof my scare scene, but big spiders always scare people just as they are! I didn't want to over complicate my props, so i've only made a simple spider. Think this is the best I'm gonna get it!

Oops! Forgot to post this!

I was meant to post this ages ago, but completely forgot to do it :( Anyways, here are my cart designs!

I decided to go with my clown design as it goes with the "Nightmares" theme the most :)

More work updates

Just a quick update on my work that I'm slowly progressing with!

Managed to finish my cart :) I think it's pretty cool! Added some arms to the side of it and a bit of stereotypical clown make up.

For a particular scare scene, I've enlarged my clown face from my cart and used it to overlook the rider on the upper floor. The idea of the rider looking up to something scary adds to the effect of the ride, it's kind of like "ahhh shit, there's a massive scary clown above me" sort of thing. Also i've added a texture to the floor of the upper level. I chose a dead grass effect as I want to create an outdoor feel to the upper level. I want to include a graveyard and some scary looking trees to it. 

My first scare scene featuring the orbs from a couple of posts back. I've made the coffin lid open and then as the cart gets to it, a skeleton pops out suddenly. This will hopefully make some riders jump out their skin!

This is my texture for the walls on the lower level of my building. I wanted to create an abandoned building effect and make the walls look really worn out and old. Old buildings are often associated with haunted locations so thought this texture did the trick!

I still need to make loadsssss of props and I think i'm gonna struggle to get it all finished. I still need to:

• Make some trees with scary eyes
• Make some sort of shadow monster
• Make a ghost
• Make a graveyard
• Add lighting
• Add sounds
• Animate all my props
• Adjust the speed of the cart in certain areas

Plus loaadssss more! Hopefully next week I can get more help than what I've been getting so I can actually make my ride look half decent! 3D studio max WILL be the death of me.

Fed up, can't do it, want to go home & eat pancakes.

So today is the second to last seminar with Roma for my Animation project. I am sososososo stuck with everything and I just can't work out how to do stuff :( Gonna try and get loads done on Thursday when I ask Andy for some help. Haa.

Also, I think I need to start focusing on my visual essay. It's only 2 and a bit months before the hand in date and I've hardly done anything! I NEEEED DREAMWEAVER!

Progression with my work

So, after many hours of tackling the hell that is 3Ds max, I have managed to actually create something! Yay!

The view of my track from the front

The view of my track from behind. This shows the upper level on the roof and some of the ground level. Initially, the track was all on one level. But to make it that bit more exciting, I've added an upper level to maximise space I have to use and so I can include more things.

This is a tunnel I have created for my cart to travel through that is situated on the upper level.

The start of some scary clown face for the front of my cart.

 

 A couple of props! 2 floating spiritual orbs and a coffin that will contain something to pop out. The lid opens on approach to it.

So far, I am happy with my progress. But, it does seem that I have a lot to do in such a little amount of time. And to make it worse, we finish Animation in 2 weeks so i'll be practically on my own. Great.

Been doodlin'

To come up with some ideas for props, my cart and the entrance, I have been drawing some images of things to do with my theme. Kind of like a moodboard, but more organised. Haha. Anyways, here are my pics. Hope they give me some inspiration!

Nightmares Moodboard

Moodboard on my final theme.

Brainstorm.

I've been struggling to come up with ideas for a theme for my ride. I have produced this brainstorm to give me some inspiration:

I've decided to go with the 'Nightmares' idea as I feel I will be able to incorporate a lot of things. Also I think it will be the most effective theme because of the vast majority of things I can include.

To start my ideas flowing, I asked my lovely facebook friends to give me ideas as to what they're scared of or what they have dreamt about that is weird/bizzare. Some of the popular things people said included:

• Clowns
• Moths
• The feeling of falling or being chased
• Darkness
• Spiders
• Snakes

I will try and incorporate as many of these ideas into my  ride. As they are the most popular things that people said, including them into my ride will help to scare as many people as possible.

Textures Research

Created another moodboard for textures.

Some of these may be taken into consideration when adding textures to certain aspects of my ride.

Research into my Animation project.

I wanted to gain some more inspiration for my project by looking at existing haunted house rides. This will allow me to identify key elements that I could include in my ride in order for it to be successful.

This video of the Haunted Mansion in Disney land is a good example of a good haunted house attraction. What I found particularly useful is the comment the user had left when they added their video. It read:

"This came out pretty good. The shot looking back at the empty hallway is there because it's one of my favorite sections of the Haunted Mansion, and, it was eerie to see it so very empty on a super-crowded Summer day."

Maybe I could incorporate this into my ride?

Had a look at another video, this is a ghost train at Pleasure Beach, Blackpool:



I particularly liked this because it gave me a good view of the track itself, and the fast dip the carts go down could be used as part of a 'scare scene'. Also it showed quite a few props that I could take into account.

I also came across this video an NTU student has done:



I really liked the theme and thought the overall idea worked well. I liked the fire and fog effects they used and it looked really realistic. Also the music/sounds fitted well and added to the jungle atmosphere. The key points I need to keep in mind here are that I need to make sure my sounds and music fit with my theme.

Researching haunted house rides..

I watched Scooby Doo not long ago, and only just remembered there is a scene where they go investigate a shut down haunted house ride. I can't find a video to show the whole thing, but I have found a couple that shows the entrance of the ride, and the inside of the entrance.

This shows the inside of the ride.

This shows the putside of the ride.