rough schedule for fall 2005

The primary goal for this quarter is to bring to life Peter Helck’s 1911 painting of the Vanderbilt Cup Race in Savannah, Georgia and to merge it into the context of an animation focusing on the final lap of the race.

I would like to take what I have learned in previous classes and put it together into a short movie demonstrating a combination of modeling, texturing, rigging, animating, cinematography, editing, and sound design.

Beginning with the elements of the picture itself:

1) Environment – oak tree tunnel, leaves, Spanish moss, track, dirt, grass, bobwire fence, bleachers, grandstand, finish line, chicken??, cows??. Last quarter I began with this part of the project and built a basic terrain and track with a few trees in UnrealEd. This time, I am going to begin and end in 3d max. It may be possible to export things at a later date but that is of no concern at this point.

2) Characters – Each car has two occupants – a driver and a mechanic. Other than the color of their outfit, it is relatively hard to distinguish the drivers as they zoom by so I am just going to model one tall lanky driver and one short fat mechanic and then just change the color of the jersey or tweak other visible elements in small ways. The characters will also have to be rigged. Their motion is largely confined to turning a steering wheel, waving hands, pulling a brake, or leaning into a curve.

3) Vehicles - race cars – There are three main cars in the picture and one coming up in the background. These cars have already been modeled and roughly textured. Over the course of the quarter, I want to briefly polish these. They will also have to be rigged so that they shake and roll as they drive by.