Creating Stereoscopic 3D Images

These are all Magenta/Green

Recreating Cameras and Lights in Maya

I couldn't figure out how to get rid of that weird shadow on the dome. It might have had something to do with the geometry of the object which I didn't want to mess with.


Original Photo:

My Attempt:

Building a Scene In Maya

I just realized I posted these on my main blogsite instead of here... whoops!

Extra Credit: Lighting a Scene.

One-point lighting

Two-point lighting

Three-point lighting

Third Term Paper

I will not be writing the third term paper. My first two term paper scores were 90 and 90.

Outline of the Third Term Paper

For this paper I will be studying rain effects in TV and film, both animated and practical.

Pacific Rim: fight scene in Hong Kong. This is a very long fight that takes place in the rain. All of it is computer generated. Combined with good lighting and texturing, the rain appears very real. Everything looks wet, and is reflecting the colorful lights of downtown Hong Kong.Very effective at looking real and at setting the mood.

Gotham: Episode 4 climax. An assassin is coming to kill his next victim, but Jim Gordon gets to the house first. The scene is set up outside the house, where it is raining. The rain is meant to change the mood and get the audience ready for the confrontation that is about to happen. The rain is a practical effect and was filmed outside in the daytime. It can clearly be seen that it was sunny when it was filmed due to the shadows in the street in the background. This creates a weird scene, which doesn’t portray the right mood. It looks like actual rain, it just doesn’t look like it should be raining at the time. 

Stop-Motion Character Animation - Team Grilled Cheesy

   

   Team Grilled Cheesy's stop-motion short! My fellow teammates were Kaitlyn Joe, Lauren Chin, and Jessica Lin. We started out by finding characters we could use to animate and then shaping a story around that. We had a lot of pairs of characters, so we eventually came upon the idea of having a lonely character looking for a friend and grieving an old one. Each of us took a part of the story and did storyboards for it. Then we came together and consolidated the story and did a quick animation run through. The next day we spent entirely on animation, followed by a day of editing.

Story boarding!

   Our setup was a simple table with white cloth pushed up against the wall. A camera was set up on a tripod slightly above the table level. We didn't have much to hold the characters in place, so we had to use tape, or hold them up with our hands,which were later edited out.

Editing time!

   In terms of how the work was split up, Kaitlyn was directing from behind the camera, and the rest of us took turns animating. I ended up animating on the later scenes. Mostly the Pikachus, the paper flying towards, and the rolling Pooh bear at the end. During editing we each took a chunk of the film. This involved photoshopping out our hands and other objects used to manipulate the animation, as well as timing out the animation. Jessica took charge of directing us in how to composite our photos. I edited the opening scene up to the page turning scene using Photoshop, and compiled it in After Effects. Each piece was then put together for the final film.

Science Fact of Cinematic Fiction?

                Animation is a medium based on the bending of reality to get a more real look, or sometimes just goes for the dramatic effect and throws realistic physics out the window. Often in animation, objects gain and lose energy, appear from thin air, and can grow and shrink in size. All of these break the law of Conservation of Energy, which is fundamental to our world. Without it, every law or principle in physics would make no sense, because energy could come from nowhere. In animated worlds this is fine, and often can be rationalized, though most times it is just to serve the purpose of the filmmaker; to tell the story.

                Sometimes seemingly realistic scenes are actually breaking the Law of Conservation of Energy. In the beginning of Rango, the title character’s home, a reptile tank, falls out of the back of a moving car. The car had just run over an armadillo and was swerving around a highway. When the car swerves, the tank flies up off the junk it is placed on, and out the open back window. This would not normally happen. As the car slows down and swerves, the tank’s inertia would keep it moving forward instead of backward.  In order for this to happen the car would have to be speeding up considerably, which it doesn’t, because later it is clear that the car pulled over, and would have been slowing down. Either that, or there is a very high speed wind blowing through the car at that moment, and the tank gets blown out the window. The scene after shows there is no wind on this desert highway, and the air moving through the car, which is probably going about 80 mph and decelerating, would not be enough to push a whole lizard tank out of the car while it should be moving the opposite direction. Somehow the tank inexplicably loses kinetic energy. Similarly, when the tank hits the ground and shatters, the hero does not have a reaction to hitting the ground. He does not bounce, but simply lands on a piece of glass and lays there as it slides down the road. The character loses energy somehow when landing on a hard surface. If it was something more pliable like marshmallow this would be understandable, but he is landing on glass, which is also landing on pavement. Now, all of this was shot in slow motion can be used in film to disguise the physics of a situation. It was barely noticeable on the first watching of the movie, which means it succeeded, as well as the cinematographer focusing more on the feeling of the character in free fall. We are led to connect more with the character than think about the physics going on in the scene.

                In a more fantastical setting the Law of Conservation of Energy is consistently broken, often times attributing such happenings to “magic.” This happens abundantly in Adventure Time, but there is a character that breaks it simply by existing. Flame Princess is a being made of fire. She can grow and shrink in size and is constantly burning. Combustion requires fuel, oxygen, and heat in order to react. When growing to sizes of three or four stories she does not consume any fuel. She is noticeably hotter, which causes things around her to burst into flame. A larger reaction requires more of each ingredient, meaning more fuel, more oxygen, and more heat. When growing to large sizes Flame Princess is outdoors most of the time, meaning there is a large enough supply of oxygen. The heat generated by the reaction meets the minimum requirement for heat in a larger reaction. The only thing missing is more fuel. Growing up she was imprisoned until the age of 14 and has no concept of eating. Without consuming anything she is constantly burning, which means she is not conserving energy, but somehow creating it. Adventure Time does not explicitly explain this, but as with many of the creatures in the Land of Ooo, there is magic, which makes sense in an animated children’s show. The creators of the show are taking advantage of the medium to create interesting characters to interact with Finn.

                Sometimes physics goes out the window just to get a laugh. While a gag may not be physically possible, it follows the logic of that world and gets the point of the story across. The Reward is an animated short film that centers around two young treasure hunters who travel for years following a map. In the end they reach their destination to find only a large mirror reflecting their older and more awesome selves. They two friends execute a high-five so epic it creates an explosion seen from space; larger than any manmade nuclear blast. The amount of energy needed to create this is huge, and again there seems to be no fuel for this reaction. No noticeable chunks of their hands were missing, which could have been the fuel. While this could be explained by magic, because one of them is a mage, it is much more likely a flare for dramatic effect, and to get a laugh. It comes at the climax of the film, as the two have just realized the true treasure was their friendship all along. The theme of this film is clearly demonstrated in this dramatic, but not even remotely possible, animated sequence.

                Animation is a world of extremes. The stretching of reality can create a more believable experience that makes us feel the characters. These examples tie in themes, moods, and the overall world consistency to further the story and get the creator’s point across. The most successful of these moments are done in a way that follows the logic of that film, while pushing the boundaries of our suspension of disbelief a little bit. The laws of the universe are not broken often, but are in moments when it is most needed to get to that crucial point of the story.

Outline of the Second Term Paper

Conservation of Energy

Scenes: The Reward High Five scene!
             Rango the highway scene, tank falls out of the car (action/reaction?)
             Adventure Time Season 4 Hot to the Touch  Flame Princess is constantly burning, but never                  losing mass,
         

Thesis: The Conservation of Energy is a principle of physics that is often broken in cinema to further the story.

In Adventure Time Flame Princess is made of fire. Fire needs a constant source of fuel and oxygen to continue burning, She can grow to large sizes without consuming any fuel, and she can spew sustained flames from her body without a noticeable change to her form. She must be powered by magic as is much of the show.

A more realistic scene. In Rango, the yet unnamed hero is knocked out of the back of a family car. The car had run over an armadillo that caused his tank to fall out of the back window. Were this to happen in real life, it would mean the car was speeding up rapidly while the lizard tank's inertia kept it going the same speed. This is not the case because the car is swerving and pulling over, which means it is slowing down. So the tank lost some kinetic energy while it was in the air.

In The Reward short film, the hero character realize their treasure all along was friendship, and they do a high-five so epic is causes an explosion seen from space, larger than any nuclear weapon. There is no fuel for this explosion, other than friendship, which is a not a physical object, so this clearly breaks the law of the Conservation of Energy.

Reverse Video Reference

Stop Motion Animation of Falling

For this assignment I used a lego tower thing I put together. Using a stationary camera on a timer, I photographed every frame. In the initial fall I made a rudimentary harness out of tape and attached the object to my arm. During the fall I held the object and later photoshopped my hands out of each image. Using AfterEffects I pieced it together and timed out the images.

Term Paper 1: Physics in Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World

Physics is how everything in our universe moves and interacts, and it is often bent or changed in films to fit the cinematography. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World not only bends the laws of physics, but breaks them completely. There are people performing physical acts not possible for the human body, people are making things out of thin air, and one character even travels around Toronto by using a shortcut through another character’s brain. Clearly the laws of physics are fundamentally different in the Scott Pilgrim Universe; namely the limits and potential of the human body, generation of energy and mass from thin air, and overall everything has less inertia.

            Scott Pilgrim is partly homage to beat-‘em-up video games, so naturally it involves crazy physics defying fights which are a delight to watch. Part of why they are so amusing is that the stunts are well beyond the limits of the human body and are clearly exaggerated. When Scott fights the third evil ex, Todd, he takes a lot of damage that a human would not be able to take. He is flung high enough in the air to be off screen for twenty seconds, and survives the fall by landing on a pile of trash bags. Not only does he survive, but he does not seem to have any visible injuries or broken bones. In the same fight he is flung through a total of five brick walls, three of them at one time even. Again Scott shows signs of being hurt for a few seconds, but shakes it off. This could mean the human body is constructed of different materials that could absorb the forces put on it. The skin could be made of some cut-proof material such as Kevlar. Bones and other internal organs would have to be much more elastic, possibly made of rubber. The forces acting on the body would be very large as well, which brings us to the aggressor, Todd. Todd has telepathic and telekinetic powers attributed to him being vegan. While the science behind being able to control affect objects with the mind is indeed questionable, it is what Todd attributes his ability to that shows that humans are fundamentally different. He simplifies it down to the popular myth that we only use ten percent of our brains, and that vegans’ heads are clearer because of their diet and can use one hundred percent of their brain power. This has been scientifically disproven, and while the myth is still perpetuated today, it is very clear that this is a different universe. Todd is not just making it up either, as shown by the basic knowledge of the other characters in the scene. They know of vegans having super powers. So this is not something that is entirely exceptional and is common knowledge. The limits of the human body in this film are both physically and mentally higher.

            Another factor that may contribute to these events is that in the film’s physics, inertia, as well as air resistance, has a much smaller effect on mass. This would mean it would be much easier to change a moving object’s direction as well as making it easier for the characters to perform such amazing feats as they do in the film. In Scott’s fight with the second evil ex Lucas Lee, Lee throws Scott across a large film set and up a few stories. This could easily be explained by him having super powers, but he is a normal person like Scott, who has similar strength, although he is considerably scrawnier than Lee. This would mean the rest energy of mass is significantly lower than it normally is. It takes much less energy to move objects. This would also partially explain how he defeats Lee. Lee dies by doing a grind on his skateboard down a rail and reaching a top speed of 309 k/h (192 m/h). This speed is close to the top speed a human can attain while falling, and he’s doing it while grinding down an incline. Gravity does not seem to be greater in the rest of the movie, in fact it would seem to be less, but he accelerates to near top speed in a matter of seconds.  This would mean it takes less force to act upon his mass than normal. Of course in order for this to happen, friction and air resistance would have to be nearly negligible. His speed was not slowing down at all; in fact he was still accelerating before crashing, which means there was no air resistance at all to counteract the force of gravity. Had there been any, it would have counteracted gravity very fast due to less inertia and Lee would not have reached terminal velocity and Scott wouldn’t have defeated him.

            Throughout the movie characters are breaking the law of the conservation of mass and energy. Characters create masses and energy out of thin air in almost every fight. Most notably is the amp vs. amp band battle with the Katayanagi twins. Both bands summon large physical monsters with their music to do battle. These creatures seemed to be formed by the sound waves coming from the amplifiers and electricity. Even more fantastical is the swords used in the final battle. Both Scott and Gideon use swords they pull out of their bodies, though Gideon’s seems more like an energy sword. There is no apparent loss of mass in either of them when they perform this. While converting energy to matter is theoretically possible, it would take a great amount of energy to do so. Einstein’s famous mass-energy equivalence formula, E=mc², shows that mass is equivalent to a significantly larger quantity of energy. This principle seems to be flipped in the film. Characters are either creating mass out of small amounts of energy, or are simply just creating mass from nothing.

            It is quite evident that Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World takes place in some alternate reality from ours. In any other film the ridiculous fight physics and mass creation would break the suspension of disbelief, but in this film it works. The aesthetic is like that of a video game and comic book, which it is what it’s based off. Clearly it was meant as a tribute and somewhat of a parody of classic videogames, so the physics are even more exaggerated. Everything in this movie is exaggerated: the script, the characters, the story, and the animation; I love it for that. The physics in Scott Pilgrim really enhances the world and the characters that live in it. 

Outline of First Term Paper

I. Introduction
   A. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
   B. The laws of physics are fundamentally different in the Scott Pilgrim Universe. Namely the limits          and potential of the human body, generation of energy and mass from sound waves, and overall          everything has less mass.
II. Body
    A. Limits and Potential of the Human Body
        In all of the fights, the human body can take a lot of damage. In the fight against Todd, Scott                gets thrown through several walls, and seems only slightly winded after. Todd himself has                  "vegan powers" because he can use 100% of his brain. Humans in this world must use only                   10% of their brain, as the myth goes.
     B. Mass and Energy Creation
         When fighting the twins in the battle of the bands, each band's music takes physical form and                fights, ending with the twins being physically crushed by their own musical personification.
          Matthew Patel creates fireballs from just his hands.
          Gideon pulls a sword out of thin air.
          Scott pulled a sword which seemingly grew out of his chest.
     C. Less Mass Overall
          This can explain the stunts pulled off in every fight. Specifically when Scott fights the movie                star, Lucas Lee. Lee is easily able to pick up and throw Scott across a large set and 3 stories in            the air. Also he easily picks up speed when doing a grind, reaching a top speed of 200 mph,                which was still accelerating before he crashed.
III. Conclusion
   A. This is clearly meant to be a different universe from our own. The aesthetic is similar, but the             physics are very different. While the action and fights in a movie usually suspend disbelief to a           point, this movie goes way over the top with it's physics.

Video Analysis of Path of Action

Tracker Video Analysis of Falling

Shooting Video Reference

Picked a bit of a small ball...

video here: http://youtu.be/DfJt1PNRCmY

Mini-Portfolio

Hello! I'm David and I'm an Animation/Illustration major. I was an Aerospace Engineering major for 3 years before switching, so I took some physics classes before. At the moment I am taking Ani 115 and Ani 51b along with this class. As for after graduating, I'm thinking of doing TV animation, either 2D or story.

 Here's a 20 min figure drawing I did over summer.

This is a 1-hour photoshop study I did from last semester in 113B. The bottom image is the one we were studying.

This is my final for 114. It is a 30 second flour sack pantomime. 

THE FIRST POST

Never thought I'd be in a physics class again. Exciting!