THE SCENE IN QUESTION...

What do you think? Personally, (and this might sound a bit sad to you but each to their own!) I love this clip and all the little details I have added to bring it to life.

My favourite part, and I admit I am very proud of this, is the camera perspective. I wanted it to look like the camera itself is mounted on the front of the car, as if it were a police security camera recording the scene. The tricky part was creating the movement.

As you can see in the video, the frame isn't still but sort of jumps all over the place. I won't pretend creating this was easy, it actually involved a lot of physics and spending ages observing how car actually move. However, it was time well spent I believe! I feel it really brings everything alive and creates that edge of realness.

Anyway, enough of me celebrating my camera whip quest. Let's talk about how I got started and how it all came together...

THE FOUNDATIONS...

Although this is only a nine second clip, the fine details that were added plus the textures and the actually animation made it into quite a big project.

I began with the roads, starting on a solid foundation so to speak. Then I moved onto adding in the larger structures such as the buildings. I actually used a few buildings I had already created and textured during another project, namely the 'Best Little Antique Shop', 'The Last Anvil' and 'The Food Place'. I wrote another blog on how I made those, click here to read it if you're interested.

The more individual objects came much later on in the project. If you walk down the street anywhere there are thousands if not millions of different objects scattered everywhere. I think we have become so accustomed to a cluttered world that we hardly pay it any attention. Where there is light there are street lamps, traffic lights, reflective bicycle pedals. Where there are buildings there is chipped paint, textured stone and reflections in glass windows. You almost don't acknowledge it until you have to make it all yourself, which is exactly what I had to do in this project.

Every detail matters when you're trying to capture a slice of reality. As aspect of my creation that I think I have done well on. I am particularly happy with the lighting which I shall get onto next...

The Lighting

Lighting is always a tricky thing whether you're 3D-modelling or setting up a real life film set. Above you can see a final snapshot of the completed project with textures. As I am well experienced by now, the lighting in the shop windows that bounces down onto the pavement was quite straightforward. The challenge was taking all that lumination and somehow reflecting it in the sky.  

If you are fortunate enough to live somewhere where they haven't yet erected a mobile phone mast every few thousand yards then you might not be aware of this problem. In the city we experience light pollution everywhere we turn. The sheer amount of lumination sort of creates a shield between us and the sky and obstructs the view. This is something incredibly difficult to capture in blender. So, after a few experiments and playing around with different tools, I decided to create a sort of mist in the air. This allowed for the light to travel but not make everything too bright.

THE OUTCOME

The outcome is a rather need car chase scene that I really think has come to life. There was much trial and error but as any of you who use blender already know (other 3D Modelling suites are available), it takes time and effort and lots and lots of zooming in and out of objects until things start to look right.