Get Out Alive! Haunted House Board Game Concept.

The concept behind this animation of a haunted house board game is a character that wants to explore this strange house. He’s a lone detective that’s investigating several murders, all of which have happened in this house. The design of the game states that he needs to check the place out for clues to what’s happened, only he finds nothing and realises that his own life is in danger. He finds himself lost so continues to check the rooms for explanations to what is going on. The real board game would be two to four players, who are the detectives. They all get split up and it’s every man for him self as the house messes with there heads and creates paranoia. Each time a detective gets to a room, something happens where they need to fight for their life. If they stay alive, they find a missing piece to the mystery. The first detective to complete the mystery and get out alive wins the game.

The final animation only covers a small portion of this, as I didn’t realise how long this idea would take to put into the animation I wanted.
Extra ideas that didn’t make it:
• I wanted to create fully moving medieval armour that attacks the characters whenever they are woken.
• Trap doors that sands a character to another room when they fall down them.
• Curtains blowing in the wind.
• Weapons for the characters to find to use on anything they encounter, including each other.
• A haunted clock that when chimes, a horrible event happens.

I feel that the overall look of the animation turned out just how I wanted it, although I think improvements could have been made. More animation could have been added to the character and an improved sound effect and animation for the flying bat.

Evaluation

My main ideas and intentions that I was trying to express in the project were:
I wanted to come up with a design that captured a spooky mood while also challenging myself by building an accurate representation of a house from multiple photographs.

The methods I use to develop my ideas were:
I experimented with various different lighting techniques to create a ghostly feel to the house. These included using fog and volume light with different light types. I looked at various existing, spooky looking houses and found one called the Carson Mansion that had many different photographs taken of it at different angles. Looking at different board games of the same theme helped me develop my design.

I took a risk by trying something new.
Experimenting with different lighting techniques was new to me and took up a lot of time trying to get the effect just right. I also looked into using Vray to see the kind of effects I could get. I found that it creates nice renders but they always seem to be in perfect sunny surroundings, which is useless for my haunted house.

Some of the unexpected problems I had to solve while working were:
I didn’t realize how long it would take to create the house design I chose, as the complexity was underestimated. Also the rendering took allot longer than I initially expected and I have taken note of this for the future.

The decisions and choices I made to help solve these problems were:
There wasn’t really much I could do to solve these problems, as I wanted to keep the quality of my design. To keep the same quality of work and also have it in on time, I used several computers at one time to render the visualization, as well as stepping up my work flow to the point of spending many sleepless nights modeling.

The most interesting or challenging thing that I achieved was:
I enjoyed building the house from different shapes and watching it slowly take shape. For a long time at first it didn’t look like a very good representation of what I was modelling. I stuck at it and after the main bulk was done I began with the details and finally saw it come together.

The things I have learnt from this particular project were:
I learnt that I need to calculate how long things are going to take based of this experience. I’ve also got the grasp of how lighting can materials can create an effective mood. I used volume light for the main light source to give the design a fogy appearance and volume fog on the ground for the mist

If I were to do this project again I would change or do differently:
If I were to do this project again, I would calculate how long this are going to take and manage my time more effectively.

A new project that might grow out of my experience maybe:
I’m thinking of going in another direction as now that I’ve achieved what I wanted from this design, I wouldn’t mind testing my skills at modelling concept cars or alien worlds.

I have achieved the following learning outcomes for this module and my evidence is:
I’ve learnt many different 3Ds Max techniques that show my personality in my work. This can be seen in the spooky fog and volume light effects as well as the attention to detail when modelling and mapping the haunted house.
I’ve understood the importance of time management when deciding on how long to take on certain areas and how long this will take to render. This can be seen in my reflection of my work.
I can see my self becoming more confidant when approaching 3D design briefs. This can be seen in the complexity of my work compared to my last project.

Animation Final Edit

Animation Rendered Stills

Playing with IK Solvers

Here I used IK limb solver to animate the ghost for the haunted house. I had a few problems with the hands as the skin modifier didn't attack itself to the bones on the fingers very well, so when I created a fist the skin deformed. I'm not too sure whether the problem is with the position of the bones or a setting in the modifier panel. For the animation I don't really need the fingers to move, but I'll need to find a solution for when I create a moving hand in the future.

Building the House

Before starting the 3D build I draw a quick sketch of the house to look at in detail the different angles and how they relate to each other. I’ve begun building the house using simple boxes and shapes to get the main angles and proportion right. Once I’m happy with the basic layout I can then start adding the detail and begin creating the woods around it.

Haunted Carson Mansion

This is the look I want to create in 3D using this mansion. As you can see I’m not the only person who thinks this mansion would make a brilliant haunted house. This is a design created by Daniele Montella using the technique of painting over existing photography to create and completely different scene.

The Carson Mansion

The Carson Mansion, California is the most photographed Victorian house in California and has the ideal look for the haunted house in my game.



Due to the fact that this mansion is well photographed, I can find many different angles to help me create my 3D haunted mansion in 3Ds Max.

Robot Arm

Here I'm practicing linking objects using hierarchy to create an animated limb.