EMAIL: stoker@sympatico.ca

NAME: Neil Alexander

TOPIC: Alien Invasion

COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.

TITLE: Space Invaders

COUNTRY: Canada

WEBPAGE: www3.sympatico.ca/stoker

RENDERER USED: 3D Studio MAX 3.1

TOOLS USED: PhotoShop, Paint Shop Pro, CMPEG

CREATION TIME: 3 months

HARDWARE USED: Dual Pentium 2 350 MHz

VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS: You may have to turn up the brightness of your monitor if it looks too dark.

ANIMATION DESCRIPTION: Objects have been falling into Earth's atmosphere. Nobody can explain them, but they are about to find out what they are...

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS ANIMATION WAS CREATED: I wanted to animate a human character for this project, so I decided to do a 'first encounter' story. I have been working out some of the details of how to create a human character over the past few months, but this is my first attempt at modelling a full character and animating it.

THE SECURITY GUARD: The guard was modelled using the meshsmooth method. This means that I started with a basic shape (a box), and formed the model by manipulating vertices and extruding and subdividing faces. Once the model resembles a rough approximation of the desired shape, a smoothing algorithm is applied (the Meshsmooth modifier in 3D Studio MAX), which rounds off the edges. This took a LONG time, but I firmly believe that it is the best method for modelling organic shapes.
    Once the model was complete, I painted the textures in Photoshop. There is a very useful utility for MAX called Texporter which gives you an image of your mesh unwrapped. This can be used to paint a texture map which will wrap properly around your mesh.
    I used Physique to skin the mesh onto a Biped skeleton, and used Morpher to do the facial animation. I took copies of my mesh and manipulated the mesh to create the facial expressions for the morph targets. The eyes are separate objects bound to the Biped head, and controlled with a Lookat dummy object.
    The dead guard is a copy of the original guard model. I just tweaked it to look fatter, modified the face, and painted some new texture maps.

THE ALIEN: The alien was modelled using the same method described above. I used the default MAX bones system to animate it, and morphed the facial animation. I wanted to create a creature that was plausible, but definitely not of this world. It is sort of a cross between a snake and a manta ray. It's primary mode of attack is to launch itself towards it's victim and bite in. It's teeth and the spikes on it's head enable it to burrow into the victim until it kills it. The wing flaps help it to control it's flight, and glide over some distance.
    The basic premise is that these creatures are floating through space in a dormant state in a sort of pod-like coccoon. As they enter the atmosphere, the heat wakes the creature and breaks down the pod enough that the creature can emerge. It then glides down to the surface and looks for food.

The rest of the modelling is basic CSG and mesh modelling. I used all my own models, done specifically for this animation, and I painted all my own textures. This was my most ambitious animation project to date, and took a lot of work to complete, but I am fairly pleased with the results.

Please feel free to contact me by email if you have any specific 3D Studio MAX questions, or any general questions or comments.

Neil Alexander