An Animated Rendering of the Battle of Gettysburg

By Elizabeth Harwood

The purpose of this project was to create a computer-generated animation of the troop movements at the Civil War's Battle of Gettysburg. As the unique terrain contributed significantly to the dynamics of the fighting, it was factored into the computer rendering. It was modeled with contours in Raster Design on Land Desktop, then exported into 3D Studio Max 5 and turned into a terrain object. Colored blocks were formed to represent the major groups of soldiers in each army, and each one was labeled according to their commanding officers. They were then animated by a combination of free-hand and key frame methods.

FIRST QUARTER:These three images show the progression of an animated tutorial I compleated in 3Ds Max 4.2.

SECOND QUARTER: These are images of the digitized terrain model. One is only the contours drawn using AutoCad, and the other two are of the rendered surface created in 3DStudio Max 5.1. The final piece is an avi clip of animation I rendered to test how differant constraints worked for paths of moving objects- one ball moves in a circular motion, while the other forms a square.
Note: for best quality, right-click on the .avi's thumbnail and open it in a new window.

THIRD QUARTER: These are images and an animation of the troops placed on the terrain in accurate positions. The images show differant perspectives, and the animation is of the troop movements between 3:30 and 4pm on July 2.
Note: for best quality, right-click on the 218kb .avi's thumbnail (the picture on the right) and save it to your computer, then view it's full size in a software like RealPlayer.

FOURTH QUARTER: This is a collection of final renderings of the project.

Isometric view of Big and Little Round Top

Side view of terrain

Top view of pre-hostility positions

5meg .avi isometric animation (see above instructions for best quality viewing)
6+meg animation from a top perspective

Enter the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Computer Aided Design Laboratory Home Page

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology