creating stereoscopic 3d images

outline of third term paper

THESIS: Comparing the visual effects of lighting in stop motion and 3D animation.

Stop Motion Example: Paranorman
3D Animation Example: Wreck It Ralph

1. Paranorman used actual lights to create the lighting
1. They could control the lights how they wanted physically
2. However, there are limitations to lighting a scene in stop motion
3. To solve limitations, they used CG which makes lighting in stop motion flawed
2. Wreck It Ralph used CG lighting
1. All possible lighting situations are possible
2. However, most of the lighting is make believe in these films so it's hard to determine what is correct or not
3. Although CG lighting is easier to solve than stop motion lighting, it is easier to make up/trick your audience into thinking it is real meaning you don't follow the actual physics of it

recreating camera and lights in maya

building a scene in maya

character animation: hat??

We had the simple idea of animating a hat flying through the wind and having someone chase after it. We first had to think of a way to animate the hat flying through the air without our hands appearing and resorted to unbending bobby pins and taping them together to the hat. Then we had to figure out how we wanted the toy octopus would walk across the scene and concluded to have him shimmy his way across rotating his body. The little octopus was animated by Leslie Wyatt. The hat was animated by myself, Michelle Choi. And the camerawork, cinematography, and the big octopus was animated by Danny Trang.

second term paper: science fact or cinematic fiction?

Television, movies, video games: these types of media have a high impact on us and are quite important to us as many of the students that are taking this Physics of Animations class, hope to advance in a field of work where they create and interact with others to bring about story and characters to life through these separate channels. With the constant growth of technology and rendering software, anything can be made to be believable through the special effects created through this advancing software. There have been movies where it’s been done completely through 3D models and animation. Video games have becoming incredibly convincing with its similar growth, much like movies. Also, television is so high definition that you can see the pores on someone’s face. All of it is so incredibly that when we see acts that defy the laws of physics, we don’t flinch. In fact, we seem to completely negate it and forget that these acts are seemingly impossible. However, putting aside the fact of how convincing it looks, let’s look at what should properly happen through the examples of Space Jam, Wreck It Ralph, and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World with Newton’s Third Law of Motion which says that for every action force, there is an equal reaction force in the opposite direction.

The first example on the docket is Space Jam. Space Jam was a film made in 1996 starring Michael Jordan which combined live action with the Looney Tunes characters as they interacted in the live action world. The story of Space Jam boils down to a basketball game where Bugs Bunny and company team up with Michael Jordan to take down Monstars, who were originally tiny martians called the Nerdlucks who want to capture the Looney Tunes and use it for profit for themselves but then steal and absorb the abilities of other talented basketball players. While the game is going, there are many instances where the Monstars would perform outrageous actions that would smash the other players thin like a piece of paper or send them flying across the room. In one instance, the largest and most muscular Monstar goes for an outrageous dunk from all the way across the court which is the action. Finishing up on his dunk, the basketball net is contorted outrageous but it is perfectly intact, which is the film’s reaction to previously stated action. However, the force of such an outrageous dunk from such an outrageously sized alien monster should cause a reaction where the basketball net, along with the entire basketball court in fact, should be shattered to pieces which should be the proper reaction that should have taken place.

Another prime example is Wreck It Ralph. Wreck It Ralph takes place in arcade games which already seems to defy all sorts of logic anyways. In this film you will see characters flying high and low. The characters come in all shapes and sizes and break lots of laws of physics. One instance is the character of Fix It Felix Jr. who is able to show a rather incredible feat of being able to jump quite incredibly high but also being able to jump at very high speeds, almost as if he can control the speed at which he jumps. Now, this can be drawn to two different things, the first one being, that Fix It Felix Jr. is so light that not much force is needed to be exerted from him to be able to jump well above the normal height of a jump. However, when you look around him, the gravity is the same as it is if it was on Earth. The other characters jump at normal heights. Also, if gravity was altered so that the others could jump to the height of Felix, then he would just be floating in air because of the low gravity. Another factor is that he is exerting so much force that he is able to reach that life when he forces himself off the ground. However, in that case, there would be some kind of indent that would show just how much force he exerted to get himself up off the ground at that height. If you watch the movie, no such indent is left behind. Plus, with the way he jumps and the sounds that is given off, he just appears to have a magically ability to control what gravity does to him when he bounces.

The last example is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Now this example is quite outrageous. In one of the scenes in this film, there is a character named Todd Ingram who is able to punch the highlights out of Knives Chau’s hair. He seemingly has ultra super strength and such from being a vegan, to the point that when he punches someone, the artificial color of their hair comes splattering out onto the area around them, which is exactly what happened to Knives. Now, putting aside how ridiculous this is, let’s try to make some sense of it, in a physics way. A punch with that much force, where it literally knocks a chemical out of your hair would be one colossal punch would probably kill Knives as well as shatter her entire skull, rip the skin off her face, rupture the muscles lined in her face, and just other impossibilities. As ridiculous as that sounds, a ridiculous action like such has to have a ridiculous reaction to follow.

So as evidenced above, Newton’s Third Law of Motion was just kicked right out the window and forgotten when these films were filmed. Or, maybe they weren’t forgotten at all and instead pushed the limits of the physical universe that these films took place in to make it more enjoyable and to push the boundaries of our creativity. While one should be rather punctual about being factual and real in their films, it’s scenes like these that make the movie what they are, that lets people make a universe of video game characters that have no sense of any type of laws of physics, that create real characters with inhuman abilities that we would like to mimic, and bring together reality and 2D.

second term paper outline: action/reaction

• Introduction
• Law: Action/Reaction
• Newton’s Third Law of Motion says that for every action force, there is an equal reaction force in the opposite direction
• With the latest technology and rendering software, anything can be believable, especially special effects which give its aid to represent things that defy the laws of physics.
• Films used: Space Jam, Wreck It Ralph, and Scott Pilgrim vs The World.
• Paragraph 1: Physics of Space Jam
• Action: A very abnormally large and muscular basketball player on the Monstar team performs a dunk and the basketball net remains intact.
• Reaction: The force of that impact should have shattered and broken the basketball net.
• Paragraph 2: Physics of Wreck It Ralph
• Action: Fix It Felix Jr.can jump much higher than others and much faster as well, being able to control how long he is in the air and the speed in which he can jump up and land back down.
• Reaction: In reality, to be able to jump that high and at such speed would leave a remarkable indent in the ground from that much force.
• Paragraph 3: Scott Pilgrim vs The World
• Action: Todd Ingram punches the highlights out of Knives Chau's hair
• Reaction: The punch is not physically possible of doing that. And if the punch really was that strong that it could physically knock the color out of hair, it would do much more damage to her face than just knocking the color out of her hair.
• Conclusion
• All these things are incorrect in terms of Newton's Third Law of Motion
• However, without these outrageous actions, it wouldn't make movies fun and challenge our perception of creativity.