Haunted House Ride Evaluation UNFINISHED!

Ok so where to start....
At the start of this project i was really willing and up for it! The idea of creating a haunted amusement ride was rather interesting while at the same time rather challenging.
I started the project by trying to come up with some ideas and themes for my ride. At the time of the project i had be playing through the game Alan Wake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Wake) which is a psychological thriller which at parts is rather intense and scary. The game its self is very dark and driven by the stories narrative which made me want to create something with more of a story rather than just a jump out and scream themed ride.
So thinking id rather have a story driven ride i started planing some kind of story i can get across in only a minute. I looked at all the common reasons for a house to be haunted, a murder an untimely death with the resident having unfinished business, a curse placed upon the house the list goes on.
In the end i came up with a story which involved the family living in a manor house out in the woods. They become tormented and eventually devoured by a giant mother snake who became threatened by the family when they moved in.
So to incorporate my story into an amusement ride i wanted to introduce the family that once lived in the house and also have the rider chased by the angry snake.

The digital design.
I had the idea and the vision of what i wanted in my head so it was to to try create this vision in 3ds max. Iv got the basics down for 3ds max although a little rusty for not having used it sins the last term. I feel i started the project rather well although about three weeks in my project films became corrupt and with no backup i had to start from scratch. Learning for this i started making backups of the project files and making sure i was saving regularly.
As last time i still feel that the program its self is very temperamental. Sometimes everything seems to run smoothly and as i wish but other times it will almost bring me to tears with its unwillingness to corporate. I built up the different levels and the different rooms with in my 'Hunted Manor House.' Creating the rooms was fairly easy, using the wall generator it was simple and adding a nice old wallpaper texture it gave a good effect.
Originally i wanted to have a large collection of portrait paintings on the wall, but at the moment i only have the one of the main 'father figure.'
There is still a fair but to do on the ride but sins getting 3ds max at home ill be able to work on it in my spare time which will give me a lot more freedom and time to experiment with different things.
I still have to work on the animation of the snake, the way it moves, brakes through walls and moves in genera. A room full of snake eggs that hatch as the cart goes by needs to be created and the final scene where the cart escapes need to be created. Touch ups on the underground entrance and the berial ground needs to be finished.
So as you can see i still have a fair bit to do but i feel i can have it done by putting some time in over the next few weeks.
Overall i can say that the virtual environments project has been rather stressful and in the end i don't feel i have enjoyed it as much is i was hoping to at the start of the project. If i was to do it again knowing what i do now id make sure i have a clearer time frame allowing me more options to create to scenes and elements.




Untitled from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

Basic Story and story-bored

Kicking off the Designing

Cart and entrances.

For the cart i wanted something really smooth and clinical, although it doesnt fit in with the astetics of the actual ride.

After adding the camera to the track 3DS max decided to crash on me :(

Here i added some texture to my wall to give it the feel of a manor house.

Mood bored

I looked through a lot of images to get a concept of the style i want for my haunted ride.
Things I looked for,
Setting
Haunted Manor house in a forest setting
Story
Old manor house haunted by its dead former resident(s)
Tag words
Dark, flashing light, shadows, fog

An interesting Idea

I found this video of a Haunted house level design and i really like the theme and mood set by it.
Id like to take some elements out of this and incorporate them with in my own Haunted ride.

One shot day shoot

One Shot edit from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

To be edited more.....

Edit ideas, add sound in the form of music.... maybe Text credits etc

One shot test session

One shot test shot from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

Your station Ident

So... its hand in date for my first DP1 module project in animation. The brief I found to be very enjoyable, although i did underestimated the shear amount of time you need to put in to the rendering process.
My first idea for the Animation idea i found was much to complex and if i had attempted to create it, lets just say i might have still being working on it now... My final idea came simply from looking around the net seeing what people had created using 3Ds Max, and I came across this video.


 I found that 3Ds Max had a very nice 'Hair and Fur' generator built into it, so I though to myself, 'that looks nice and i could create something simple yet beautiful using this.'
Seeing the short youtube animation and the power of what the plug-in could generate, I was reminded of a Pixar making of video that I saw on the creating of Monsters inc. The monster Sully was created with millions of individual hairs and took a heavy amount of time to render his movements. Taking this into account and knowing that i am new to animation I though that a simply 'Hair ball' would be a starting point for getting to grips with the software and its workings.
I wanted to give the hair ball some what of a personality and a noticeable character.

Giving a hair ball a personality I feel I did pretty well. I had the hair ball always moving, trying to give the senses of excitement and curiosity. Knowing that sound is a very important element when trying to give and animation life I tried to get sound clips that get a senses of mystery and interest.

Overall I really enjoyed the Animation module and I am very interested on what our next project will Intel.

The final Video
After rendering the video out I found that the Edge of the 'Plain' was showing through the hairs on my 'Hair ball.' After talking to Andy he says adding a 'Wall,' will help to solve this problem. I will be uploading a cleaner version as soon as.


Animation HD from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

Here is the cleaned up video, I am very happy with the out come and feel that for having no previous experience in animation, I have created something i am proud of.


Finished Animation HD from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

Animation test's

Short ident idea, well be developing this further

Short Ident test from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

Hair ball test 2
Render messed up a little, but now hair has a bit more life to it.

Test 2 from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

Hair balls test 1

Hair Ball Test 1 from Mark Boam on Vimeo.