Final Animation Update

I have split my final animation into 6 separate scenes as I found that easier to split it onto different sections and work on the different sections with their own movements and camera's. So far i have the bare bones of the animation i want to do as the movements and positions are all in place. The things i have found difficult are animating the asteroids individually to look as if they are moving towards the ship and the ship is dodging them, also I found positioning the camera relative to the action quite hard. In all the scenes I have deleted the sphere that would be the environment as I am working at home and the mac wouldn't allow me to put the texture on the existing sphere and crashed so I have left that to when I am back in the Lab session tuesday. In the scene 1 I have done I have used the motion paths and camera following it. The X-Wing rises from the station and this is the first scene finished. Also I have modelled a space station based on the one in this picture (below) but have left the texturing blank as I needed to concentrate on the animations. This could be textured once all animations are finished if I have enough time.

SpaceStation

This shows the ship rising on space station

The second scene changes camera to an over the shoulder type shot but over the space stations shoulder to see the X-Wing fly off into space at speed, this is the first 5 seconds of the animation complete. I used the motion path again to set the speed and distance that the X-Wing would fly off.

Over the shoulder shot of space station

The third scene shows the X-Wing in space and spotting the tie interceptor in space. The camera then shoots towards the interceptor to emphasis the point that the X-Wing has seen it.

The fourth seen follows and shows the X-Wing pursuing it and ending up at the asteroid field. Again here I used the motion paths that intertwine with each other to give the illusion of a high speed chase and also used the animation of the camera to show the X-Wing spotting the ship.

The fifth scene was the hardest to do as it included the asteroids, I had to use the motion paths again and use them to move around the asteroids and then I had to animate the asteroids to make them come at the X-Wing, to make it look like the asteroid field was moving itself. Again i used the same camera shot as in the 3rd scene as it makes the watcher become immersed in the asteroids as they fly at them but i change camera half way through to give the watcher an idea of where the X-Wing is in relation to the asteroid field.

The sixth and final scene shows the X-Wing come around the moon to show that the Intercepter had retreated to the bigger ship the defender. The ship looks at both of them, R2D2's head swivels to induce panic and then the X-Wing retreats at high speed. I used the normal key animation to get the high speed movement but also used the aim connection on both the other ships to make it look like they are watching the X-Wing leave.

This is the bare bones of my project and it will look a lot better with the environment sphere in place, I am also looking into making the ship be able to shoot and implementing sound into the animation to improve it.