Final Animation

This is the final animation.

I feel it is still in great need of improvement, but with the issues I have come across and time growing shorter, I have had to finalize the work so far.

Setting the Scene, Rocks

 I added a cylinder to be the first of the long rocks to be about the map for manoeuvring between.

Once it was changed to a editable poly, I moved the vertices at the top of the cylinder to give it a rough edge and then added a displace modifier, like for the terrain and added a height map for a canyon face which can be found here.

This looks ok, the result could be better with more clusters and mounds of rocks of this shape much like the original picture of Iego.

Setting the Scene, Merging the files

The merge function was easy to use and placed the ships in the scene ready to be used.

I grouped the files using the ship names, as they are put in the scene as the separate objects.

Setting the Scene, Sky Dome

To create a sky dome i first started off with a geosphere and enlarged it over the entire scene, leaving a little room around the sides to ensure that the sky dome covers the entire plane.

I then ticked hemisphere option to reduce the sphere to only cover that top as the bottom is not required.

After this i flipped the normals to ensure the sky material I used would show on the inside of the dome as opposed to the outside.

I then added a xform modifier to the sky dome to allow me to use the gizmo to reduce the hight of the sky dome as, as we have been told in lectures this makes it look more realistic.

Finally I added the material take from the VLE to the skydome to get the following effect. 

I am pleased with the outcome the sky dome looks realistic and passes for sky, there is a slight seam where the texture meets but it does not seem to be entirely noticeable so I will stick with it.

Setting the Scene, Terrain

To make a basic terrain I made a plane and increased it in size to be big enough for the scene, I then used the "Displace" modifier with a height map taken from here, and increasing the strength to 50.

Then I applied a sand texture taken from here.

Using the material slate editor and connecting the node to a standard material, I then scaled and tiled the image to make it look appropriate.

I'm happy with the result and it was quick and easy to achieve.