The AW101 is a medium-lift helicopter manufactured by AgustaWestland, and is used by the militaries of several countries around the world, including the UK. The helicopter incorporates cutting edge technology, and has crashworthy and damage-tolerant features which allow the aircraft to be operated in the world's most extreme environments, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. The helicopter can also be used for civilian applications, offering superior comfort and a spacious environment. In the latest James Bond movie - Skyfall, it also appeared in several scenes.
Regarding all the features that AW101 has, it was the perfect aircraft to combine with my short film entitled "British Intelligence Agency - GCHQ". Therefore, to further my personal project, I chose AW101 to be a new challenge. In this project, as realism was vital for a combination of shots, one of the primary goals was to cross the uncanny valley. On top of that, it was also a project to tune my capabilities of running HDR 4K projects.
The following pictures show some of the key techniques and steps involved in this project. The short video with breakdown, at the top of this page, also provides a brief outline.
Reference
Before creating the whole AW101 in 3D, I needed to gather highly detailed information about this aircraft. The more information I had, the more details I could create accurately. I searched for real photos and brochures on the Internet for modeling, as well as many other photos for texturing and light studying. It was not easy to find all the information I needed, therefore I had to create some parts of the aircraft based on my knowledge and imagination.
Modeling
As this model was set to have the ability to hold up to mid shot (MS) in 4K production, I created more details about it than I have ever done on other projects. As I took most of the reference data from photos, the perspective distortion and lens stretch were serious matters. Therefore, one of the obstacles creating this model was making it accurate and mechanically correct.
Texture setting
Making the AW101 texture took up most of the time in this project, and required a great deal of effort. This aircraft was to be under the service of MI6 (imaginary) and well maintained, the dark gray setting was also to depict a sense of secrecy. All of these came with challenges: this was not either an entirely new nor worn out aircraft. Some minor dents, dust, water and oil stains were expected, but the aircraft should not have serious chips and bumps on it. It was not easy to find a balance between new and old, too much or too little would simply divert its attributes.
About 12 main giant textures were used for the model, each texture had 4 to 5 sub-textures to describe reflection, mask, bump, glossiness and opacity. To achieve better understanding and results, I also made real material balls (chrome/finish black/finish white/18% gray) and HDRI for testing and creating my pipeline. One of the very important thing here was that the materials and light were linked tightly. Some of the causes (effects and possible problems) are HDRI and full float rendering related.
In terms of the crew, the creation and design were very basic but serve as a little spice to the whole set by bringing vitality to it. Honestly, it was fun to animate the character.
Rigging
Due to the thorough work done on modeling, the rigging was relatively easy, only the front wheel and main rotor were more complex and needed some study. Another thing to factor in was the speed of the rotor. It was a matter of realistic motion blur.
Background, environment & lighting
The background was created from some photos I found on the the Internet, then combined and tested with the material balls that I made. At the end, I created the whole environment by duplicating it, extending it and replacing certain features to make it look nature.
Particle & simulation
This was more important than I had previously thought. There was not only heat distortion but also smoke emitting from the engines to consider. What was more, there were many types of distortions (such as temperature/distance/angle etc.), and simulating the flow of the heat at different speeds and levels was needed.
Compositing and applying effect
Here comes another fun part. I composited some characters into this shot and tried to make it more interesting. These sources were captured from some clips found on the Internet, and were initially unrelated to the scene. However, after some editing they seemed fine to be included. They were mainly distortions to match the FOV of the camera, and colour editings to match the background.
