When we decided to start planning for our animation project, we were brainstorming ideas of what to do, what type of theme would wanted for this project. Since both of us love playing basketball, it didn’t take long for us to decide to do an animation that had a basketball theme to it. Since we were informed that Brock had various programs at our disposal such as Poser, we decided to use it to model our characters to do various slam dunks.

4 Process

When we first started working on this project, we weren’t quite sure of the complexity of the actual work. Our initial proposal was to create a basketball shoe commercial with basketball players in the background doing various dunks. As we spent more and more time focusing our efforts on modeling the actual dunks, we knew that we would surely run out of time, and not finish the commercial, so we modified our project to be just the slam dunk contest.

4.1 Models

Our first course of action was to create some of the props needed to make the animation realistic, this included create the basketball net, and creating a basketball

4.1.1 Basketball Net

The first thing that was constructed was the basketball net. We made use of 3D studio Max to create this model

This model is comprised of 3 main objects, we have a rectangle for the post, another rectangle for the backboard, and a torus for the hoop.

4.1.2 Basketball

The next object we had to create was a basketball, instead of just using a sphere we, wanted to make it more realistic, so we went on the web to search for 3D studio model of basketball, and we came across a script that made it, this script can be found here: http://www.tdp.nu/cgi-bin/plugread_r4.pl?Type=Objects&sort_a=Author

Created by Kim Kyung Sin

Unfortunately when the model is imported into poser, it just looks like an orange ball and the lines cannot be seen, we are unsure why this is.

4.2 Dunks

4.2.1 Vince Carter Dunk

The first thing done for this dunk was to create the environment, so firstly I set the background color to blue to look like the sky, I then changed the ground color to green, and finally I changed the shadow color to a darker color. After these superficial changes were done, I imported the basketball, as well as the basketball net.

Now that the environment was created I had to start making the animation of the actual dunk, so I started making key frames, here are some examples:

This is of the model starting its run

This is one where the model is ready to jump

This is where the model is just about to dunk the ball

The Hang

The Fall

The Land

Now obviously there were many more key frames needed to make the animation look realistic, but these were the few main key frames required in the dunk.

4.2.2 Tracy McGrady Dunk

The Tracy McGrady Dunk is a replica of a dunk preformed in a video I downloaded. I found it easier to move my model based on the actions of an actual human rather than trying to produce my own kinematics.

The environment was first setup by giving the ground some texture and adding color to the sky. The goal was then imported from Bryce and placed into the scene. This set the stage for how far my model had to be from the net. It gave a quantitative feel for how many steps needed to be taken and how far out the model would have to jump.

The next step was to start my model’s animation. The toss was the first action performed. This action was done totally free-hand since I could not find an accurate model to meet my specification. It was important to me that the model looked as realistic as possible so after every key action I would export the movie to an avi file and play it back.

After the jump had been preformed, the next step was to begin the approach. For this I used the walk designer giving my model a long stride with high knees making the approach look more like a skip then a run or walk. Once I was satisfied with how it looked I mapped it onto a walk path so my model would be lined up with the basket for his takeoff.

Once my model was all lined up it was time for the take-off. This was simply a matter of first bending his knees and then lifting his entire body into the air.

The model’s flight was the hardest part of the animation. There were several factors that played an important role in the realism of how my model looked in the air. Numerous times I had to re-adjust for distance to the hoop, amount of torso twist at each keyframe, height to catch the ball and height to “jackknife” the ball. There was one sitting pose that I found very useful in the jackknife part that only required a little amount of tweaking.

The actual dunk was fairly straightforward. The harder part came when I actually had to put the ball through the hoop.

The landing was also fairly straightforward. I used one of the jump poses to ensure it the model had a cushion-like landing with his knees bent.

The pose at the end was done to add character to my model. I thought it allowed for an entertainment value to compliment his successfully completed dunk.

Once the model’s actions were complete it was time to add the ball. The tweening Poser offers make it very easy to simulate motion. I only had to keyframe the peaks and dips of the ball bouncing. The challenging part was fitting the hands around the ball and making the ball fit through the hoop. Again it was very important that the gravitational pull of the ball appeared life-like and so I exported the file to avi to ensure it looked realistic.

The fun part of the animation was playing around with the cameras. I tried to make it look as if it was being recorded by an actual network. To do so I used camera angles such as the backboard cam and on-floor cam. I also tried to zoom into the model’s face as he was doing his victory pose to show off his emotion.

5 Applications Used

5.1 Poser 5

Poser was the main program used to crate the models and animate the actual dunk

5.2 3D Studio Max 5

3D Studio Max was used to create the props required for the animation such as the basketball, and basketball net.

5.3 Goldwave

Goldwave was the audio editing tool. I felt that the audio gave life to the dunk and really made it more believable. Numerous sound effects were pulled from footage I found on the net. It was then cut up and synced to actions our model’s were performing. The sound of the ball going through the net had to be timed perfectly to give the dunk a sense of power. In the actual animation these few keyframes were sped up to enforce this concept. The commentary and crowd noises were a key element in making the animation appear as if it was actually being recorded.

5.4 Ulead Video Studio 6

Ulead was the video editing tool that brought our animation together. Since both our models were created separately there had to be some way to merge them.

The background track does an excellent job of combing our two dunkers and sets the mood for the start of our movie.

The beginning credits are shown as clean white characters on a dull background bringing a sense of simplicity that will build up to the action following. The zoomed in title, timed to the start of the baseline in our song is the trigger to this subsequent action.

The 3-d transition between scenes represents a change in action and simulates the act of a replay used in many sporting events. The slow motion replay also serves another purpose of allowing the animation to be observed more clearly from a closer angle at a slower rate.