Ident 2: Science Table

The idea for the second ident for the discovery channel was a table showing different science equipment and apparatus. The ident would start with zooming in on the table, then travelling around the table and finally landing on the Discovery Channel logo.

The table was created with a large, flat box drawn into the viewport. Four narrow cylinders were drawn and attached to the box to create the table legs. The paper on the table was created by three very thin boxes drawn and placed on top of each other, rotated slightly to show three bits of paper. The petri dishes were created by drawing a thin cylinder for the base and then adding a tube on top, the same diameter and a small height dimension. The same method was adopted for the beaker but with a larger height diameter on the tube for the sides. The test tube rack was created with 4 boxes created and placed at ends to form a hollow box. The holes in the top were created by drawing four cylinders and placing them through the top. A Pro Boolean was then used on the top to remove the cylinders, leaving a top with four holes. On the base of the test tube rack, four spheres were placed and the same technique of using a Pro Boolean removed the spheres leaving a small indent. The test tubes were created with a tube for the main body and a sphere for the bottom rounded section. A pro boolean was used again to cut the sphere in half. These were grouped together and cloned to create 3 test tubes. These were then placed into the test tube rack previously created. The bunsen burner was created with lots of different sized cylinders and a cone for the base. These were placed together, whilst looking at real images of bunsen burners to get the desired effect. Another longer cylinder was then used with a bend modifier for the gas pipe coming out of the tube. The bunsen burner stand was created with a torus for the top and four cylinders for legs.

Finally, the flame for the Bunsen burner was created with a sphere gizmo and a fire effect added to it. The levels were tweaked until the desired effect was achieved. This was then placed over the top of the bunsen burner model.

A range of materials were used to bring the table to life. A wood map was used for the table top. A grey blinn shader was used for the table legs, bunsen burner and stand. The metal effect was created by adding a light grey ambient and diffuse colour, changing the white specular level to 77 and increasing the glossiness to 23. A bitmap map was used with a picture of an A4 document to add to the paper on the desk. This gives the effect of really being a document on the table. The bottoms of the petri dishes had bitmap maps added to them with images from real petri dishes. These images were tiled 10 times in both axis to give a good effect. The clear effect for the side of the petri dishes, beaker and test tubes was created with an off white blinn shader with the opacity set to 27. Another cylinder was placed inside the beaker with a light colour to give the effect of liquid inside. Finally, another bitmap was used on a map for the Discovery Channel logo in the bottom left hand corner of the table.

A target spot light was placed above the table, flooding the table scene with light. The hotspot/beam was set to 100 to cover the whole table. An omni light was also placed slightly off the scene to the front to add a little more ambient light.

A free camera was placed in the top right hand corner of the scene with a very wide angle lens. Over the period of 400 keyframes, the lens was set to very telephoto so by the end of the animation, the camera was highly zoomed into the table. This was the first section of the ident.

The second section consisted of a camera tracking right to left over the entire table. It then ended up on the sheets of paper placed on the table in the scene. Finally, the camera moved round and centred on the discovery logo on the table. This ended the ident.

The clips were imported into Premiere Pro and linked together, again with cross dissolve transitions. The zoom into the table was slowed down to 50% as it was too fast from the render from 3DS Max. Finally, the camera stops on the Discovery logo for a few seconds and then the video fades to black.