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.

stop motion animation of falling

I wanted to make my nightlight bounce. I used the Falling a la Chai rule, or at least to the best of my ability and used my floorboards as markers of where the halfway points where for 1, 3, and 5. I knew it would be difficult to make it look convincing without squash and stretch.

term paper: the laws of physics in tangled

In 2010, the Walt Disney Animation Studios released a 3D animated film called Tangled, which was based off the German fairy tale, Rapunzel. In this film, the main character is a young princess named Rapunzel, who was kidnapped when she was a child for her long golden hair which had magical properties in it. The women who kidnapped Rapunzel acted as her mother and used Rapunzel’s hair to stay young forever. She then meets Flynn Rider who she blackmails into taking her to the castle so she can see the ‘floating lights’ on her birthday, which are actually lanterns that are released so that the lost princess may find her way back home. A character in this story doesn’t actually have any lines but a big role and a quite controversial one: Rapunzel’s hair. As we follow Rapunzel on her adventures, the laws of physics are pushed and tested through the use of her hair.

There were quite a lot of scenes where Rapunzel was doing quite miraculous things with her hair. One of the scenes in the very beginning is the opening sequence where we see Rapunzel start her day, bright and early, playing with Pascal, her pet chameleon. She is able to find him by using her hair like a whip when he tries to hide behind a flower pot. The scenes continues into song as she continues to describe her morning and how she does her everyday chores and activities with her hair. She is able to mop the floor while keeping her hair in check so that she doesn’t make a mess, climb all over the heights of her tower with her hair, painting the walls by using her hair like a rope, and many other tasks. First of all, her hair is ridiculously long, like inhuman lengths long, so it’s believable that her hair can be used in all these ways as shown in the movie, however, according to Kelly Ward, a senior software engineer for Rapunzel’s hair, she said that Rapunzel’s hair would weigh 60 to 80 pounds and would have been 70 feet long. It’s quite a feet, when a short, dainty girl can run, leap, and keep her head perched when she’s got 70 pounds weighing down on her neck and shoulders. Also, with that amount of weight, her hair wouldn’t look as bouncy as it did in the film. The way her hair moves and interacts with the wind is an indicator that there are boundaries of physics being broken here. There is a particular scene where she is holding all her hair in her arms and runs around while throwing her hair all over in the air as they neatly land in a circle around her. Rapunzel looks over 90 and not a pound over 115. Her being able to hold more than half her body weight is in an incredible feat that she shouldn’t be able to do if the laws of physics were being followed.

Speaking of Rapunzel’s strength, in the film, it also shows how Rapunzel is able to use her hair to pull up Mother Gothel and Flynn Rider into the castle by climbing her hair. Now, while it looks believable in the film, I was already doubting how that was possible, but for the film’s sake, I passed it off as movie magic and chose to believe it for the film. However, there was an article that studied the physics of Rapunzel’s hair and how strong it was. In the article, they explained how Rapunzel lives in a 70 foot tall tower. The writers of the article assume that Rapunzel’s hair could support the weight of both itself and that of a man, if the assumed man was 60 kg. Later, they had come to the conclusion that Rapunzel’s hair can actually support the weight of 2750kg, which is almost 5 times the weight of Flynn’s assumed weight as well as Mother Gothel’s, who would weigh less than Flynn. So, according to the article, it is actually physically possible that Rapunzel is capable of lifting people into the tower. Of all the things that I thought was physically possible, it turns out they actually stuck to the rules of physics when it came to these scenes. With all the running, cartwheels, and swinging she does with her 70 pound hair. The factual representation of her hair is that she can pull up people up with her hair.

Now, what Disney movie isn’t complete without some magic in it. Rapunzel’s hair has shown to have magical properties that range from curing illnesses and wounds to being able to turn back someone’s external appearance. In the beginning of the film, the source of the power was from a golden flower that Mother Gothel used to keep herself young for many years. Then when the queen fell ill while she was pregnant with Rapunzel, the King had his soldiers go find the flower for her. Successfully finding the flower, despite Mother Gothel’s efforts to hide it, they make it into a soup and feed it to the queen who is magically healed and gives birth to a baby girl with long, golden hair. This little baby girl is Rapunzel who now has those properties transferred into her through her hair. Mother Gothel discovers this and tries to take Rapunzel’s hair but once it’s cut, the hair turns brown and loses its magical properties, as well as ceasing to grow at rapid speed like the rest of her blond hair. I don’t think you need to be an expert in physics to know that magic doesn’t pertain or acknowledge the laws of physics and just chooses to do what it wishes. Especially in these fairy tale stories. In reality, hair could never grow to those lengths and the pull of gravity on 70 pound hair would be quite the strain on your neck. Also, hair can’t glow or heal people or make you younger, we can only wish.

At the end of all this, there is something to remember however, Tangled is a fairy tale and like all fairy tales, they aren’t real. They use the imagination and take things out of this world to create an enjoyable story and teach us something in the end. Without these feats of wild imagination and defying acts of physics, the film just wouldn’t be as enjoyable and frankly, I doubt anyone would want to watch it. Animations like these are made to be out of the world and defy these logics and show us what creativity can do when you just think outside the box a little bit.

first term paper outline: tangled

• Introduction
• Tangled (2010)
• 3D Feature Film Animation
• The laws of physics are pushed in the 3D animated feature film, Tangled, as it follows the adventures of Rapunzel and her incredibly long, golden hair.
• Paragraph 1: Mass and weight
• Her hair is ridiculously long, to inhuman lengths. 
• Hair of that length is around 80 pounds.
• She is able to keep her head up and run with that amount of weight.
• Paragraph 2: Strength
• She is able to use her hair to pull up Mother Gothel and Flynn Rider
• The ultimate tensile strength of human hair is 380MPa
• This means that Rapunzel’s hair could support a maximum weight of 27kN
• According to an article, this meant that Rapunzel's hair could support the weight of Mother Gothel and Flynn Rider
• But again, we are talking about magical hair
• Paragraph 3: Scalp and neck
• Rapunzel's hair flows behind her despite how much it weighs, if pressure was applied, her hair would rip out of their roots
• Her whole body is able to stand upright despite the weight that is being put on her body, especially her neck
• She can jump, cartwheel, and swing with her hair.
• Paragraph 4: Magical powers
• Her hair has magical powers that can heal wounds by stopping the bleeding and completely sealing the wound.
• Has the power to reverse one's age so they appear younger
• Conclusion
• A lot of laws of physics were required to be broken to make this film
• Though some physics were involved to make it work such as hair strength
• In the end, by breaking these laws of physics, a film was made that shows that hard work and a good heart can come a long way

video analysis of path of action

tracker video analysis of falling

shooting video reference

mini-portfolio

Hello, I'm Michelle Choi, a visual development artist in her final year of BFA. I worked on Chai's film, "Bound for Glory", over the summer and mostly enjoy traditional work, especially with pen and ink. I have finished all my lower division classes and hope to dedicate most of my time to the assignments in BFA and getting my portfolio ready for the industry.

Here are some of my work:

And here is an animated short I took part of for 24 Hour Animation:

The First Post

I am Michelle Choi, currently a BFA A/I student with a concentration in VisDev.