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This animated scene is based on the movie trailer genre, it is a movie that will probably never be made and probably shouldn't. Space is quite an abstract realm for most people and allows for many creative ideas to be developed as we do not have a full grasp on what actually is out there. The scene is a spoof on many sci-fi flicks and a slight knock at society. With the dawn of 2001 and the false prophecy of armageddon, this scene is a comment on the closeness of catastrophe highlighting the reality that we are all safe, so far anyway. In light of last years Y2K bug and the promise of the end of the world not coming true, it is good to laugh a little at ourselves.

Movement

The scene is animated soley through dynamics. The earth and satellite share the same center of gravity on the y axis. Where the earth rotates around its center of gravity along the xz-plane and the satellite orbits the same center of gravity around the z-axis. Simulating an orbiting satellite of a planet. The asteroid also has the same center of gravity but it's movement is set as a constant speed in a the negative x direction. Almost as if at one point in time it received a little push and has been tumbling through space forever. The speed of the satellite and the asteroid were adjusted allowing them to miss.

Cameras

There are three cameras which provide the points of view through out the scene. Two were set up to track the satellite and one was set up to track the asteroid. This was done in order to give a better and more interesting views of the near collision. Each camera was set up with a star field back drop giving the illusion of infinite space. Camera one is a two node camera that is focused on the satellite and is the first view that is seen. It moves with the satellite and gives the orbiting effect. Camera two was set up to track the satellite but not move it follows the satellite and give the view of the asteroid rolling up behind it. Camera three follows the asteroid from its starting position off in space and gives a good side view of the near collision.

Models

The Earth The earth is a simple NURBS Sphere tilted slightly off the z-axis to simulate the earth's uneven axis spin. The realistic looking earth texture is actually a satellite image taken from NASA's web site. The earth was set as a rigid body and bound to a center of gravity

The Asteroid The Asteroid was the most difficult of all models. It is a NURBS sphere that is contorted. The hard part of modeling the asteroid was making the contortions actually reflect the irregularities of a piece of rock. Switching to component mode and selecting various points the sphere was pinched and pulled. In component mode there are more nodes to select and this allowed for greater detail in the contortion of the sphere.

The Satellite The satellite is comprised of 4 different objects. The satellite dish was created from a NURBS cone. From the original cone it was collapsed and widened, this was also done in component wire frame mode which allowed for better selection of the different layers of nodes. The satellite box is a simple NURBS cube. The solar panels are NURBS planes, after the original was created the second panel was duplicated from the original. The antenna were created from a NURBS cylinder, again the second was duplicated from the first. Then the rotated in an opposite angle. The satellite was grouped, set as a rigid body and bound to a center of gravity. Given the center of mass the spin of the satellite around the z axis.

Textures

The Star field was created using Corel Paint. Using the air brush and its largest brush size and lightly clicking the mouse button once to spatter the black background.
Again the earth's texture is a satellite image downloaded from the NASA web site.
The asteroid texture was created using Bryce 4.0. Creating a mountain landscape and then exporting the bitmaps from it. Using the texture editor in Bryce and using the rock texture templates it was possible to create the given effect. The asteroid was able to take on the shiny bumpy characteristics of rock and ice.
	The satellite box texture was created in Adobe Photoshop using a yellow back ground and applying the grain filter to it. This gives the illusion of a reflective foil like skin. It is hard to see during the animation but it adds to the reflectivty and is very evident in still captures.

Lighting

Three lights were used in the scene, one ambient light source and two directional light sources. The ambient light source was used to give general lighting and allowed for a the stars to appear to give off light. The two directional lights where used to simulate the sun. This allowed for a reflection to occur on the satellite and the asteroid.

Music & Editing

The music was the theme from the movie the 2001 Space Odyssey. It was preformed by John Williams and The Boston Pops Orchestra. It was found using napster and converted from an mp3 to wav using a program called "cdex". Edited in Sound Editor cutting and pasting the part that was needed and adding a fade to the end of the peice.

The scenes where timed to play with the music. The first of the high notes introduced the satellite, the drums accompanied the tumbling of the asteroid and the final high note was the exit. Each scene was time to change during the change in tempo of music.

Overall Experience

Maya 3.0 was difficult at first to understand and would take years to master. It is very diverse and powerful. It is impressive to think that whole movies are developed using 3D animation tools such as this one. In retrospect of the final product and the knowledge gathered by the end of production it is easy to spot many areas that could have been improved upon. Overall it was a great and fun experience.