SCENE AS IS

The scene has the excavator digging the soil. The excavator once carves the soil. The amount of soil stays inside the bucket and behaves like a solid body. Then the excavator hoists its grab. And gets ready to dispose the soil. Half part of the animation is done with bones, the other with the help of shape keys. All keys are there on timeline.

GENERAL INFO

The scene has 29 objects. Eight of them are accessory and invisible, like 4 empties, 2 armatures, a lamp, a camera. The rest 21 are 'visible' objects. All of them are shaded and textured. There are free main groups of objects: The Excavator The Soil The Building All objects are real-world size. Transformations are zeroed (Freeze Transformation option in Maya). All objects are named correspondently. So are materials, textures, vertex groups, UV-channels, shape keys, bones etc..

NOTES ON SEPARATE OBJECTS (PER EACH LAYER)

Here's the content of each layer. The brief descriptions cover particular features of each object.

Layer A1 The CRANE and the bucket constitute one object made up of bunch of separate meshes. All jacks and tubes are all within this item. The greater deal of armature animation is applied to this object. The bucket is supplemented by accessory object of bucket dirt (this is a separate object skinned on the same armature and textured).

Layer A2 The BASE or the carriage is one object made up of bunch of separate meshes. As it doesn't have to move with the crane, neither quiver with cabin, it is rooted straight to the Group empty, and is not parented to armature. You may find it useful to do otherwise, in this case you'll find that it has right pivot point and stuff.

Layer A3 The CABIN and the salon is single object made up of bunch of separate meshes. For example the door is separated and skinned on correspondent bone in order to be open and shut. Mention that unlike others this object has two materials applied to it - the glass for windows an the metal for body.

Layer A4 The BALLAST or the body of the excavator has the wording on it. Just like on other objects you can modify them. All parts with titles are supplied by corresponding photoshop files.

Layer A5 The CATAPILLARS are shipped in two variants - static and dynamic. Dynamic object shows the credible moving of catarpillar. It's made up of single catarpillar chip that is arrayed along the nurbs curve.

Layer B1 The SOIL that is being dug by excavator is an object with two shape keys applied to it - the first to simulate the bulge of the soil, and the second to show the irregularity of the pit.

Layer B2 The SOIL PEEL or the loaf of the soil that is being detached from the ground and picked by bucket has the most complicated dynamics. At first (up to frame 90) it nearly rests still and flat on the ground. To provide seamless implosion it has a tweaking shape key. Also the Soil and the Soil Peel have common UV unwrapping to make it seamless, and allow different implementations likewise the animation of your logo pictured on the ground and excavated... Starting from frame 90 (and up to 110) the loaf starts to be squashed in order to show the behavior of mud. On frame 110 the object is being transferred from one parent to another (from ground to bucket). This is done in the commonly used way, with the help of 'child of' modifier.

Layer B3 The STONES which had to pour out of the bucket firstly 'hide' within the soil loaf and then pour out of the bucket onto the ground. This was done with the help of simple armature. The rest two layers have background objects.

Layer B4 GROUND underneath the building

Layer B5 the BUILDING itself