TITLE: Space Invaders

NAME: Neil Alexander
COUNTRY: Canada

EMAIL: stoker@sympatico.ca
WEBPAGE: www3.sympatico.ca/stoker

TOPIC: Alien Invasion
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
MPGFILE: invaders.mpg
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


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


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


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

