(didn't have a copy of the entire trailer, so just my part is posted).

I researched the E3 2008 trailer for God of war 3. I used elements of the professional example to improve my own trailer, in particular I was impressed with the fly-bys of water and other scenery seen in the professional trailer, I incorporated moving water in my trailer because of this.

in direct comparison with the professional example, the professional trailer is far superior which is expected, the full team paradox trailer, did not play out very well, many of the different scenes were drastically different in style, which resulted in the trailer playing out like an obscure animation. whilst the professional example had a consistent style which played out very nicely.

I also liked the part towards the end of the professional example where the head of kratos (the main character in GOW) is seen speaking, I incorporated the idea of having a short dramatic speaking role into my part of the final trailer.

if I had to do this all again.

personally, if I were to do this again, I would have taken more control with the rest of the team, although I wasn't the team leader, I should have spent more time explaining each scene of the trailer to each person in order to create a more consistent style. Although it seems like I am blaming others for the problems in the trailer, in the end the trailer suffered due to communication between team members which is believe could have been much better.

despite the drastic differences in styles clashing with each other as the trailer goes on, the 3d models, and effects shown by each person are actually quite excellent.

I thought that my own work could be improved as could everyone else's work, however the standard of the work shown was good enough.

my work from a purely aesthetic point of view

throughout the actual production of my trailer I actually encountered very few problems, there was one point of the trailer where I wanted a bomb to fall to the ground, which I forgot to add into 3ds max, so I resorted to adding it in later in Sony Vegas, one issue that did occur was that when I added a new layer of footage over an old layer, the old layer appears to be darker in colour, meaning that it looked odd when transitioning from one piece of footage to the other, to combat this I added a TV static effect whenever this occurred to cover this up, this turned out quite well so I added static throughout my part of the trailer for consistency.

if I learnt anything at all from these issues is that I should storyboard everything, and plan out every single second of my work before I start work on it, as the Sony Vegas issues occurred on parts which were planned during production and not before.

throughout the creation of my part of the trailer I improved my max skills in general, mainly with character modelling, texturing and lighting.

surprisingly my part of the trailer was completed ahead of schedule, I was constantly improving my trailer until the day before the showcase (mainly in Sony Vegas), however the bulk of the 3D work was completed weeks in advance.

I personally had no problems with time management I followed the work timetable to the letter when it came to my production and planning work.

when it came to the rest of the team there were issues with planning, for a long time we were all indecisive on what the final game storyboard should be, we all decided in the end that the team will use my storyboard and that each member do a slide from it. this idea however didn't turn out as well as I hoped, each team member had their own aesthetic styles and opinions of the final trailer should be, this made the final trailer look more like a linear animation, than a promotional game trailer.

how I achieved my desired results in 3ds max

From a technical standpoint I used a variety of 3DS max techniques to create my part of the trailer, my part of the trailer contained 3 main parts which were edited together using Sony Vegas pro. the first part was one of a aeroplane which was flying amongst the clouds.

for this bit I modelled a plane using a Boeing 777 as reference and coloured it in completely black, this was done purely for time saving reasons, however I don't think anyone noticed, a fly-by of the plane was also made using cameras. I also added clouds using a particle system, this was done partly for aesthetic reasons, but also because i didn't make any ground in this scene and it looked on floating in a big bubble, the clouds cover up this issue. also to make the plane appear to be moving I, keyed the sky-box and clouds to move back slightly whilst it rendered, this alongside the 3D clouds made this bit look much better than planned.

I then edited this render with a second render showing the "large oval" which is in fact a bomb falling from frame.

the next part of my part of the trailer is of a nuclear bomb growing to an immense size and engulfing a city. the bomb was creating by adding a lathe modifier to a 2D representation of my desired bomb shape, this was then textured, I then created a smaller version of the bomb and using a morpher modifier, morphed between the two, giving the illusion of it growing. the rest was made using lighting effects, for the lighting I used a skylight, however I turned it down to about 15% this was because the skylight overpowered what was supposed to be a rather dark scene, the rest was made using omni's which changed drastically in illumination throughout the scene.

another thing I added was water, I created water by adding a texture to a plane, this texture contained the specular level tuned up to be very high so it reflects light easily, I also added a "noise" as a bump map and "ray-trace" as a reflection map this gave me my desired result, as an added bonus it reflected the skyline in the background, almost exactly like how it did in the storyboard.

the third part of my trailer involved the president saying the phrase "we will launch every nuke" as a flashback to the past. I initially used the "milkman" model as the basis of my president model, the only difference being the president wears a crown, and the milkman wears a flat cap.

I created the model by extruding a cylinder over a t-pose reference which was made in photoshop. this made his torso, legs and arms. for the head i wanted a different and more detailed model, so i made the head again using a more detailed image, which I then merged with my first model. the model was unwrapped and textured using photoshop. I collected the images for texturing in a rush, from various sources around the internet, if I were to do this again I would photograph my own textures to achieve a better result. with the model completed I had to lip-sync it to some audio. I recorded some audio, and edited it to remove any silence in audacity. I then made my voice deeper, as an extra effect I duplicated the audio twice and altered the pitch on the new tracks (one with a higher pitch, the other with a lower pitch), this created an almost demonic effect for the president which was fitting to the character.

I then inserted this audio track into 3ds max and added an FDD box modifier to the presidents face, using this modifier I moved his mouth and eyebrows to match the audio, I had to do this a few times to create the desired result.

in the final trailer the bit with the president talking was superimposed in front of the city, this was to cut time, as my part of the trailer was getting to lengthy, initially I rendered him in his living room sitting in a chair, for the final trailer I rendered him in the chair but I made the background entirely green so I could chroma-key him into the scene.

I repeated this technique for the part where the bomb falls from the sky, because I forgot to include it in the render with the actual nuke, and rendering it again would be too time consuming.

how the trailer is at an acceptable age rating,

the trailer, if it were to get an age rating, would probably get a (BBFC) 15 rating due to it containing some dark Sci-Fi themes, such as explosions and the apocalypse, however no actual violence is seen and many of the violent themes are toned down. in the original storyboard for instance,(in Toms part of the trailer). the main character was seen carrying a shotgun when he was running around the city, however in the final trailer, the gun is mentioned however it is not seen, if that scene in particular had actually shown the gun, then a new rating may have to be issued.

when it comes to the issue of gender, the trailer would be suitable for all, however geared more towards the male spectrum, due to its content. the trailer overall however was very clean and contained nothing offensive or derogatory in any way.

evaluation of the digital showcase

in regards to the digital showcase i personally believe that the showcase did what it intended to do, which was to display the work created by the various games and media students, primaraly the games trailers created by the year 2 games students.

all the work that was showcased was all created before the showcase premired, i personally belive that regardless of pre-set deadlines the important thing is that all the showcased work was showcased which it was.

the media rooms displayed many different pieces of work such as concept art, storyboards, and other important production work, these were all arranged on big display boards around the two media rooms. the main focus of the showcase however was the game trailers which were on the big screen in sf04.

the big screens in SF04 and SF01 had work on them constantly looping, the screen in SF01 had individual pieces of work such as concept art, and renders from various students constantly looping. in SF04 however the games year 2 game trailers were constantly looping with audio.

some students stayed till late and assisted with potential future students by imparting information about the course and the programs it uses.

the teachers were incharge of the running of the operation.

many visitors came to the showcase such as potential students and their parents, parents of current students and ex students who had moved on the university.

various comments were made about certain aspects of the showcase some focus was shown towards the big screen with the game trailers looping, the comments were positive overall.

during the showcase a football match was shown on one of the televisions, personally i didnt like the idea of showing live international sporting events during a showcase about digital media and video games, I thought this was a bad idea as it shifted focus away from the work of students and the course, the rest of the showcase was at an excellent standard however.

personally i thought the game trailers looping in SF04 were the best part, i enjoyed this aspect very much.

trailers evaluation

team 42 opted for a space themed racing game, for the basis of there trailer, the trailer mostly consists of dynamic action scenes, which kept the audience interested in the trailer, the ships and enviroments were well moddelled and the, camera work used was very well done. one part in particular which caught my eye was one segment where the trailers track jumped into a wireframe model and then back into a textured track in one smooth motion which was quite astounding to watch.
there were other the audio and sound effects suit the visuals reasonably well, and the actual scenes appear to be consistant and well put together. one part of the trailer which recieved critisism was the credit sequence which was quite underplayed and wasn't as dynamic as the other segments of the trailer.

the trailer which paradox made, darkshock consists of a cinematic adventure consisting of the creation of a post apocolypic future world and a deranged man looking for his wife.
unlike the trailer team 42 made, darkshock consists of many vastly distinctive styles merged together, personally i didnt like this, as the trailer panned as being less of a game trailer and more of an obscure animation. dispite this however, the audio was very well suited to the visuals, the enviroments were dynamic and intuative, and certain scenes dispite not containing much animation were still very dyanamic, one scene in particular consists of the man coming home and rummiging through his house before screaming "wheres my wife?!" the scene contained very little animation apart from a fly-by at the beggining. the rest of that scene was little more than sound effects and voices, yet this scene stood out to me as being the defining moment of the trailer.

negative one created a trailer based upon what appears to be a fantasy game, the trailer contains many different and distinct enviroments, some of which include very well crafted buildings, and archetecture whilst others contain vast outdoor enviroment such as oceans deserts and forests, i was impressed in particular by the water effects seen in the trailer,which reflected and the many particle effects displayed, some segments contained incredibly realistic smoke and fog effects. one critisism i have however was the audio which seemed to consist of an endless music track consisting of soothing music, this audio although very fitting to the beautifully rendered outdoor landscapes, got quite repetative after time.

lazer baby made a trailer based around a game called tempest, this trailer embodies a much darker feel to it compared to the other trailers, there are many dark, eerie and almost gothic enviroments which are very well moddeled and rendered. the audio was also very effective, the music used suited the visuals exceptionally well, and the characters were incredibly well made, lazer baby made excellent use of "old fasioned" camera filters and effects in order to achieve the required result. I have no critisisms about this trailer, however on certain monitors the trailers appears too dark to view effectivly.