Galloping Gertie: The Collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge

This documentary took second place at Nationals in National History Day 2007 in the junior group division. The theme was Tragedy and Triumph.

Flying Van

There are several things going on in this animation. The background is a photo on a large polygon. This makes it give the illusion of a real backgr...   more There are several things going on in this animation. The background is a photo on a large polygon. This makes it give the illusion of a real background because it doesn't move with the camera, unlike using a background image in Lightwave. I was playing with that and the movement of the wings and engines on the van which is a multi-layered object. Obviously, I wasn't too concerned with the smoothness of the motion path or with the details of the model. I did play with the graph editor for the motion path a bit as Lightwave is too in love with placing arcs where they aren't desired.
Another thing I did was to create a null object in layout. I placed it in the center of the van initially, then I parented the camera to the null. Instead of trying to keep the camera at a set distance from the van, I just kept the null close to the van, but always in line with the center of the van. This makes the camera follow the null and maintain a constant distance. By moving the null only left or right, the camera only moves left or right.
Yes, I could have constructed it so that the van cast a shadow on the ground but it wasn't a goal for my exercise.   less