Creating the Scene

Like any other method of filming or creating a video, before I could shoot I had to create the environment in which the events would occur. I decided to create a vast snowfield with the radar base in the centre.

I firstly created a large plane as the ground surface and gave it around 25 x and y segments. I gave the plane a bump map and displacement value of 10. I was sure to give the map only small geological features as this was not supposed to be a hilly area. I then added a noise modifier to the plane with only small x y and z values to ensure the topography was flowing and rounded rather than jagged and rough. I then added a high resolution snow texture. I had to make sure the resolution was high otherwise it would appear pixelated and unrealistic when viewed closely, such as in the video.
Once I had finalised the appearance of the ground I added in a sky box by creating a large geosphere, halving it using the hemisphere option. I ticked the flip normals box so that I could place a sky texture inside the scene without it showing on the outside. I added some slight self illumination to the skybox to ensure that it would stand out adequately for the scene.

I finally added objects to the scene and then resized them so they were in scale with each other and were the right size for the plane I had created.

Texturing the Models

Before I could place my models in a scene, I needed to give them all textures.




TANK

With the tanks in the scene, I wanted to give them a distinctive military look, that fitted well with the environment they found themselves in. The first thing that I decided upon was a camo pattern. As these tanks were placed in the Arctic, I decided to give them snow camouflage comprising of blacks whites and greys. this pattern was found at the following address: http://www.cartownforums.com/forums/downloads/urban-digital-snow-sample_dOk.jpg

As it is, it would work well however i wanted something with more detail. When applying the regular material to the tanks, it looked slightly bland as it revealed no detail of the texture underneath the layer of camouflage. I edited the texture using photoshop to bring out some of this detail, such as access panels, riveted sheets of armour and other components that would give the model an extra kick of realism and style. These camo textures were applied to the main body of the tank and the turret body. The two textures can be compared below, the original first followed by the edited version.

Other areas of the tank were textured using several custom made textures, comprised of varying shades of grey with similar black detailing to add interest to these areas. Some of the areas that these textures were applied to were the gun barrel, muzzle brake, engine panels on the rear, wheels, tracks and attached items on the back of the tank. By mixing several different textures it makes the model look as though it is made up of many pieces that have different functions and compositions and also made the tank more visible, as camouflage all over would have made the tank hard to see in some shots. I was very pleased with the final outcome, the camo texture looks fantastic and fits in really well with the environment and also looks believable, and interesting to the viewer. The other components look good also, although do not have the same complexity as the camouflaged areas.

Guard Tower

The guard tower was supposed to be a lightweight prefabricated structure that could essentially be "Flat-packed" and shipped off to wherever in the world they might be needed, so would have to be composed of lightweight materials that could be easily sourced nearby. I decided that the roof should be made of wood, along with the struts. The rest of the body would be a lightweight metal for repelling small arms fire, though not impervious to anything larger. I custom made textures for the roof and legs, opting for a light brown with detail lines and white flecks to represent snow or ice covering its surface. This texture looked effective when placed onto the models, the white snow looked particularly effective in the scene, as it really gave the feeling the towers were exposed to the elements.

The other areas of the tower were made using a grey detailed texture to give some surface detail and bring a bit more life to the model.

Radar Base

The radar base was intended to be a bare sterile looking building made from solid sheets of metal and concrete, and as such was not camouflaged in any way. The main dome was given an actual radar dome texture, found at the following url http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/11652574.jpg

This texture wraps entirely around the dome and gives it a nice futuristic mechanical look. The other textures were reused from the other models, which turned out to work well for the heavily armoured outer shell made up of huge metal plates. 

Guard Tower

The guard tower was a relatively easy model to make compared with the other two. It consists of 4 rectangle primitives that are long and thin for the legs, which were then cloned and rotated to the side to serve as support pylons. A rectangle was then aligned on the top of these struts and hollowed out using the Boolean subtract method. 4 smaller rectangle rods were used as supports for the roof which was a simple pyramid shape, matched in width and length of the tower. I added a searchlight using a cylinder primitive and a security obstruction around the bottom half of the tower by stretching out the vertexes on a rectangle primitive. To add more interest to the object I added a plane base with several crates and barrels to fit in with the rest of the scene.

Mood Board

Radar Base part 3

Finally, using the align tool, I placed the radar sphere ontop of the base. In this picture the sphere is smaller than later versions as I decided to resize it so it would draw the viewers attention as it is the main set piece. In later revisions I also added in a small mast to the generator shed.

Radar Base part 2

I used the polygon tool to give the generator shed a more interesting roof, by dragging polygons upwards from the original shape. This gave an interesting contour than the flat section it previously had. I produced the geodesic dome for the radar by creating a sphere, and decreasing the number of faces it had in its structure to give it a distinctly edged feel, I did not want it to be smooth but instead wanted a disjointed sphere.

Radar Base part 1

I started out with two primitives, 2 rectangle blocks and a cylinder which had it’s number of sides decreased to 6 for aesthetic effect. I aligned the cylinder with one of the rectangles and selected the vertexes around the outside top edge, and by pinching them all together I made a rounded edge for where the radar dome will be sat.

I used the line tool to select the second from top section of the main building and dragged it outwards to create an overhanging area around the top of the building. I then used the polygon tool to extend part of the front of the building, then drag it back to produce an access hatch to the radar facility.