Ident 1: DNA

My first ident for the discovery channel is looking at DNA. The scene starts with a single strand of DNA turning, moves onto vertical strands of DNA and finally ending with travelling through a strand of DNA.


The DNA strand was created by drawing two thin, parallel cylinders into the viewport. Between these cylinders, smaller, thinner cylinders were drawn and placed along the entire length. The whole section of DNA strand was then selected and grouped together to form a single object. A twist modifier was then added to the group along the X axis with an angle of 180 degrees. This provided the shape required for the DNA. The group was then cloned four times and placed next to each other forming a long strand of DNA with many twists in it.


To make the DNA more authentic, materials were added to the strands. 5 main materials were created for the 5 different sections of the DNA strand. The main outer of the DNA strand was a Blinn shader with a Blue Ambient and Diffuse colour. The glossiness was set to 10. This was then applied to the two parallel cylinders of the DNA strand. Then, four other materials were created similarly with different ambient and diffuse colours of Yellow, Red, Green and Pink. These were alternately applied to the smaller cylinders to mimick a real DNA model.





For the first part of the animation, a camera was placed at the side of the strand in a similar position to the perspective viewport. Over a period of 400 keyframes, the DNA strand was rotated along it's X axis. When the timeline was played, the DNA strand was slowly rotating. This scene was rendered to form the first section to the ident.


The next section consisted of lots of vertical strands of DNA. The strand created earlier was moved to a vertical position and cloned 18 times. The heights and original positions of the strands was adjusted so they did not all look uniform. Over 400 keyframes, the strands were set to rotate as in the first scene but at different times to make them look different. A spline was drawn as a path through the strands of DNA. A free camera was placed in the viewport and a path constraint linked to the spline created. The camera was then set to follow the path over 400 keyframes. This view was then rendered to provide the second section of the ident.


Finally, a free camera was placed at the end of one of the DNA strands and over 400 keyframes was moved through to the other side, along the entire length of the strand. The strand was also set to rotate as in all the other scenes. The final view was of the camera moving through the spinning strand.


The three rendered scenes were imported into Adobe Premiere Pro and linked together with a cross dissolve transition. At the end of the 3 rendered scenes, a static plate with the channel logo was placed on the timeline with a zoom transition. When the video was exported, the ident was complete.