Advanced Modeling and Animation

 Name: TANG YUYING

Student ID: 0370676

Programmed: Interactive special design

Module name: Advanced Modeling and Animation

Introduction

In this blog, I will provide a detailed introduction to the models and animations. Our theme is about the future amusement park, so we searched for reference pictures ourselves and designed five models, ultimately completing a full amusement park design. 

Assignment1

In As1, we need to design two models. The ones I mainly made are a fly car and a drop tower.

References images：

（Fly Car）

（Drop Tower）

Animation concept: 

Fly Car:

I want to design a flying vehicle that can fly in the air by itself, replacing the bumper cars that were originally in the amusement park.

Drop Tower: 

The seats in a circle can move up and down on the main pole.

• Product display:

（Fly Car）

(Drop Tower)

Reflection:

When I first started working on AS1, I was still a bit unsure about what kind of "Future Amusement Park" scene I wanted to create. So, at the beginning of the modeling process, I leaned toward simpler designs. This way, I could avoid affecting the style and consistency of the models I would make later on.

For the animation part, I planned out the animation logic in advance and consulted the teacher about how to execute it. Since I’m not very confident with coding, I decided to use Level Sequence in Unreal Engine to animate the flying car. I found this method to be much more beginner-friendly and easier for me to handle. Although the animation wasn’t perfectly smooth, using this tool made the whole process much more manageable compared to writing code.

I also learned many practical skills during this project. For example, I now know how to export models in parts from Blender and import them into Unreal Engine correctly. Some components needed to be animated separately, so they couldn't be exported together with the main model. This required me to plan the animations carefully ahead of time. Once I had a clear plan, exporting and setting up each model became much easier.

I’m especially grateful to the teacher for being so patient throughout the process. Since I struggled with some of the software, their step-by-step guidance really helped me fix mistakes and move forward with confidence.

Assignment 2

In AS2, we continued designing based on the theme of a future amusement park. I mainly designed the pirate ship and the Ferris wheel.

References images：

（海盗船）

（摩天轮）

Animation concept: 

Pirate Ship:
My concept is to break the traditional limitation of the pirate ship being fixed in one position. I want it to be able to fly in the air. Therefore, its wings need to be able to flap up and down.

Ferris Wheel:
The requirements for the Ferris wheel are relatively simple. It has a track in the middle, and the passenger cabins can rotate. The main structure of the Ferris wheel itself does not rotate.

• Product display:

（Ferris wheel）

（Pirate Ship）

• Reflection:
  

For this assignment, I wanted to create amusement park facilities with a futuristic and technological feel, because I had already envisioned the basic layout of my amusement park. I imagined having many floating structures and hollowed-out designs, so I decided to make a pirate ship and a Ferris wheel.

It was during this assignment that I realized I had made a mistake from the very beginning — when I was building my models and applying colors, I didn’t do it within a Blueprint. This caused a lot of extra work later, as I had to rebuild my models and reassign the colors again inside the Blueprint. Since animations and final outputs are based on Blueprints, constructing everything directly in the scene from the start was the wrong approach. It taught me a valuable lesson, although it cost me an extra night rebuilding my models properly.

The animation for the pirate ship’s wing swinging up and down was done with the help of the teacher. I really appreciate their assistance, because when I tried to do it myself, the motion turned out very awkward. The teacher also helped me debug the code for the Ferris wheel — when I initially tried to write it, it didn’t work at all and the cabins wouldn’t rotate. Although the logic for the Ferris wheel was actually explained in class, I unfortunately didn’t save the reference materials and forgot how to structure the code properly, so I’m very grateful that the teacher helped me with that again.

This also made me realize once again that I still need to spend more time learning and improving in the area of animation. Theory and practice are really two different things — although I watched some tutorial videos, when I started doing it myself, I found that hands-on practice is essential. Only by actually doing it can I see where my problems are and what needs to be improved. Of course, I’m also very grateful to have Mr. Liu guiding us throughout the process. Whenever we encountered difficulties, we were able to ask for help and get timely support.

• 
  
  

  Assignment 3：

  
  

In AS3, I mainly built a structure to contain all the models. My idea was to make the structure feel more futuristic, but I also had to consider how the character would move and run on it, so the terrain couldn't be too complex. Therefore, I mainly referred to the second and third reference images.

References images：

（image1）

（image2）

（image3）

• Product display:
  

In the final project, I imported all the models into the final base.
Overall, it looks much better than before. The transparent outer shell allows visitors to see the clouds outside and the hollow floor. Although the modeling process didn’t fully meet my expectations, the overall result is still acceptable.

Reflection:

Throughout the process of completing all my assignments, what I learned the most was how to create animations and how to import separate parts from Blender into Unreal Engine.
At the beginning, I was very anxious because I wasn’t good at using the software.
But I’m truly grateful to the teacher, who patiently helped me fix my mistakes again and again and repeatedly explained the things I couldn’t grasp.
Thanks to that support, I was able to complete this animation and the final project.
It was also my first time successfully creating simple animations in Unreal, which gave me a great sense of accomplishment.
I hope this experience will allow me to learn better and practice more in the future.