Creating Stereoscopic 3D Images

Here is my attempt at 3D images. It was much more fun than I expected it to be. I think the picture of myself is my favorite one. I also did an extra one of an old Maya project of mine.

Recreating Lights and Cameras in Maya

Well, this was one of the hardest assignments for this class. I had no idea lighting could be so intricate, but I gave it my best shot, which isn't the best recreation unfortunately. I did two of my assigned images.

original

original

Extra Credit: Lighting a Scene in Maya

1 point directional light

2 point ambient light

3 point rim light

Building A Scene in Maya

Special Effects in Animation and Live Action

I have chosen not to write the third term paper. My previous scores were both 92.

Outline for the Third Term Paper

Snow Special Effects

I. Intro: Snow seems to be a fairly simple concept. It's frozen rain that looks like little white dots that flow through the air. However, if one looks closely at a snowflake, one may realize they are one of the most intricately designed features of nature. Like a snowflake, the special effects it takes to create snow is also a complicated process. The two movies that will be discussed are Ridley Scott's "Legend" and the Rankin-Bass production "Rudolph the Red Nosed-Reindeer". Both of these examples predated computer special effects and they get creative with their use of effects.

II. Body:
   A. Legend: This film shows some of the greatest visual effects to come before the use of computer special effects. Naturally, their creative use of snow is noteworthy. In the beginning of the movie, winter sets in rapidly and forest is completely covered in snow in an instant. To make all of this snow, the filmmakers used a mix of paper and plastic for the snow along with several well placed fans to keep all the flakes moving. This, along with the gas used to make all of the fire scenes in the film contributed to... a catastrophic fire at the set. Luckily, no one was injured, but almost all of the sets were destroyed. Nevertheless, "Legend" creates a beautiful, believable scene with their technique.

   B. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: Rankin-Bass is well known around America as the series with all the holiday specials. Their cute doll designs and simple stop-motion animation capture the hearts of children. Snow is often seen in their productions, particularly in Rudolph. Their technique was coined 'animagic', in which traditional animation cel drawing were placed over the pre-recorded stop motion animation. While Rankin-Bass does not create believable snow, it does fit in with the visual design of their films. Rankin-Bass succeeds with creativity and appeal, but fails in authenticity.

III. Conclusion: Visual effects for snow have come a long way since the days of "Legend" and "Rudolph". Snow is still often created in live action through live special effects, though the formula for the perfect snow has changed often; in fact it is sometimes preferred to it this way in order to properly put the actors in the element. Computers are also used for snow effects, as seen with Frozen. Snow can light and airy or dark and dramatic; it is up to filmmakers to decide how to best create a believable, perfect snowflake.

Science Fact or Cinematic Ficton?

In the world of movies, there is a certain limit one must follow the laws of physics for the audience to believe in the world the filmmakers are creating. However, there are plenty of movies where these laws of physics must be broken. Whether filmmakers do this due to ignorance of science or for good reason to advance the story depends. In the examples below, the law of action and reaction is discussed and judged on whether or not the breaking of the law is justified. In these films, the laws of action and reaction is sometimes broken through poor knowledge, and other times it is broken through good intentions of carrying a good story. The three films I have chosen are Cloud Atlas, Hook, and Kill Bill.

The first film I chose was Cloud Atlas, one of my favorite movies. One can describe the movie as the journey of several souls throughout the history of Earth, and it journeys through many different eras and has a multitude of characters. It is often harped on for its complicated plot, so I assumed the audiences would not pay too much attention to the laws of physics. I was somewhat correct in this assumption. While this film takes place throughout many fantastical worlds, the laws of physics are actually followed closely well for the majority of the film. Many laws are followed well, such as with the laws of balance while the future Neo-Korean characters, Hae-Joo and Sonmi, are running across a small beam over a harrowing sky-rise. However, they disregarded the law of action and reaction in a later scene, and it is debatable if this was done for the story or out of ignorance.

In the same timeline mentioned before, there is a fight scene that takes place between one of the male leads, Hae-Joo Chang, and the Neo-Seoul police. In this fight scene, there are several instances when the law of action and reaction is broken. These several instances noted are the inaccuracy of recoil of a gun. This is seen in the scene where Hae-Joo saves Sonmi from the police. He is disguised as a simple truck driver, but then pulls out his trusty futuristic energy type of gun. Hae-Joo fires this gun and the police officers go flying in the air, hitting the walls. This scene is also somewhat odd for several reasons. Firstly, in that the police officers fly away at a relatively slow speed. Secondly, Hae-Joo aims the gun at one officer, but the second one standing behind Hae-Joo also goes flying away. Not only is there a flaw with the speed at which the police officer is shot away and how the second one is also blown away, but Hae-Joo shows no effects of a recoil as well. If the gun Hae-Joo was firing was strong enough to blow away a human being, the speed would have to be incredibly strong. Secondly, if the gun was that powerful, Hae-Joo would have to suffer significant recoil as well. Maybe the future designed guns that have no recoil and can make people fly away without firing at them… however, it is still distracting from the audience. This scene was a instance where I believe the filmmakers disobeyed the law of action and reaction, but I do not believe it helped further the story in a significant enough of way for them to do so.

The next movie I will evaluate is Hook, Steven Spielberg’s children fantasy movie about a grown up Peter Pan. It is a children's fantasy movie, so it is understandable the filmmakers would break the laws in order to fulfill a child's dream. They break numerous laws, the most obvious being the law of gravity with Peter Pan and a number of other character’s ability to fly. Disregarding those laws, the filmmakers also decided to break the law of action and reaction. The instance in particular where the law of action/reaction is broken is when Jack is playing baseball in Neverland, where Captain Hook is hosting the game. Jack hits an unbelievably far home run. For a ten year old boy with little muscle mass, he would not be able to put such energy into hitting a baseball so far that it goes hundreds of feet into the air.

However, this is one of the instances where the breaking of the law of action and reaction is justified. It is the moment when Jack finally feels validated by a father figure, and the story would not have been able to progress without this feat of incredible strength. The filmmakers clearly knew they were doing the impossible, but they had to do it in order to fulfill the needs of the story.

The final movie I chose to analyze was Kill Bill by Quentin Tarantino. Honestly, I could have chosen any of Tarantino’s recent films, in most of his films, the blood spray is wildly inaccurate and this is a rather good example of breaking the law of action and reaction. However, Kill Bill had a slightly more intricate way in which they broke the law of action and reaction than the typical gun spraying blood all over the place. There is still blood involved in this example, as expected.

In the one of the many climaxing battle scenes in the movie, the Bride has to fight O-Ren's 88 army. There are countless instances where the law of action and reaction is broken. However, this example in particular is a twist from the norm. In this instance, the Bride is fighting the schoolgirl assassin Gogo. Gogo wields a large metal spiked ball. The Bride is finally able to defeat her when she kicks the spiked ball, has it bounce against a wooden beam, and then bounces back to hit Gogo's head. Firstly, there would not be enough energy to propel this metal ball enough times that it is able to make a significant damage to Gogo. Secondly, this energy would also not be significant enough that force makes Gogo break the table she is standing on in recoil. While the Bride is strong, she  does not have enough energy to propel a large metal ball, have it bounce back at a high speed, and have the table get destroyed in the recoil. However, I believe the filmmakers were well aware of the inaccuracy of this stunt. It made for an exciting action scene and had all the speed and blood that the story and feel of the movie needed.

In conclusion, in all of these movies, the law of action and reaction is broken and bent in unbelievable ways. However, the audience does not mind it so much. It is all to the benefit of the story and creating an immersive world the law is broken. That is good reason enough in a fantastical world of cinema.

Listed below are the Youtube links for the two of the scenes mentioned:

Cloud Atlas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1r3i4SSbMA (begins at 0:07)

Kill Bill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9iIKn1Bl6c (begins at 2:00)

Outline for the Second Term Paper

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

I. Intro
    a. In the world of movies, there is a certain limit one must follow the laws of physics for the audience to believe in the world the filmmakers are creating. However, there are plenty of movies where these laws of physics must be broken, whether it be through ignorance of science or for good reason to advance the story. In the examples below, the law of action and reaction is discussed. In these films, the laws of action and reaction is sometimes broken through poor knowledge, and other times it is broken through good intentions of carrying a good story. The three films I have chosen are Cloud Atlas, Hook, and Kill Bill.

II. Body

   a. Cloud Atlas
        - While this film takes place throughout many fantastical worlds, the laws of physics are actually followed closely well for the majority of the film. However, in one of the future timelines, there is a fight scene that takes place between one of the male leads, Hae-Joo Chang, and the Neo-Seoul police. In this fight scene, there are several instances when the the law of reaction/action is broken. One notable example is when Chang is firing bullets at the police. The police go flying in the air, at a somewhat slow speed, hitting the wall and get knocked out. Chang shows no effects of a recoil.
 
b. Hook
       - Hook is a children's fantasy movie, so it is understandable the filmmakers break the laws to fulfill a child's dream. The instance in particular where the law of action/reaction is broken is when Jack is playing baseball in Neverland, where Captain Hook is hosting the game. Jack hits a unbelievably far home run. For a a ten year old boy with little muscle mass, he would not be able to put such energy into hitting a baseball so far that it goes hundreds of feet into the air.
 
c. Kill Bill
      - In the battle scene between the Bride and O-Ren's 88 army, there are countless instances where the law of action/reaction is broken. One of the many examples is seen when the Bride kicks the spiked ball back to the schoolgirl assassin Gogo, and then the ball bounces on a wooden beam and then bounces back to hit Gogo's head. There would not be enough energy to propel this metal ball so many times that it makes a significant damage to Gogo that she breaks a table in response.

III. Conclusion
     a. In all of these movies, the law of action/reaction is broken and bent in unbelievable ways. However, the audience does not mind it so much. It is all to the benefit of the story and creating an immersive world the law is broken. That is good reason enough in a fantastical world of cinema.

Reverse Video Reference

Here is my wonderful rendition of these fancy walks. Sorry I'm not so technologically fancy to figure how to embed this, so copy and paste yay!

Reference A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djMZYFzMpgI

Reference B
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JXG4bmtWs4

Reference C
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEtouIxQrc8

Reference D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO8uSGsa-9Y

Enjoy!

Stop Motion Animation of Falling

Here is something suprising... a ball bounce! Who would of guessed? Happy Sarcastic Awareness Month. That last part isn't sarcastic. It really is Sarcastic Awareness Month.


The process for this stop motion was fairly simple. I had leftover construction paper and decided to cut out two different shapes, a circle and an oval. Then I used a ruler in between shots to align the balls as was bouncing. I did a simple background as well with a ground plane. I played with the spacing according to the fourth down at half time, though I did manipulate this rule when the ball made contact with the floor.

Enjoy, Madeline

The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe

LIMBO: The New Laws of Physics of a Surreal World

            In the critically acclaimed indie puzzle game, LIMBO, the player controls a young boy that must survive through perilous obstacles in order to find his little sister. The strange world the player navigates through has its own set laws of physics and often breaks the laws we experience in the real world. LIMBO has good reason for this however; in fact, the game would be nowhere near as captivating as it is without breaking laws of physics. LIMBO breaks the laws of physics in order to make the player feel ill at ease and lost in this familiar, yet odd world. The examples that best represent the alternate laws of physics in this world are: the unrealistic superhuman strength of the little boy, impossible laws of gravity, and the inconsistent lighting in various levels of the game. All these examples work together to create this strange world the player experiences.

            One of the most recognizable breaking of the laws of physics is seen with the playable character’s body. If one simply looks at the design of the character, one sees the boy’s body proportions are completely skewed. His head is much larger than the rest of his body, and his legs are quite short. Of course, children in the real world do tend to have larger heads when they are young and then they grow. However, this still does not account for proportions of this character. His body would unlikely be able to support his large head. This distortion of the body is done for appropriate reason. There is an overemphasis of his head size to his tiny body in order to make him blatantly childlike. The game uses a simple silhouette design to show the character, so it needs to be easily readable that this character is a child. This decision to manipulate body proportions also contributes to the horror of the game. If it was an adult going through these deadly obstacles, it would not disturb the player as much; instead, to notch up the horror factor, they use a child design. This makes the game significantly more frightening.

Boy body design while running away from imminent death

            Along with the playable character’s unrealistic body proportions, he has superhuman strength. This can be illustrated in the scene where the boy pushes the dead carcass of a giant spider. This spider is roughly twice the size of playable character’s body. Also taking into account his small limbs, his arms would unlikely have enough muscle to push this giant spider’s body. There are several instances where the boy displays incredible strength, such as when he is pulling a large boat, pushing fallen tree trunk, and pushing himself up various ledges through the game. With his small arms, it is unlikely he would have the power to perform any of these feats.

Pulling the boat on to shore

Pushing a log 

Rolling the dead, limbless spider

            However, the game is notorious for its variety of gruesome deaths the playable character can experience. They are many instances where the boy does not jump far enough and cannot grab a ledge. He is also not so invincible as to be immune to electric shocks, heavy falling objects, and sharp blades. On some level, the character is bound by the laws of physics as seen in his treacherous death scenes.

This won't end well... 

            The second example of where LIMBO toys with the law of physics is with its manipulation of the laws of gravity. About halfway through the game, the player starts to encounter devices that flip the direction of gravity. It is then up to the player to accurately manipulate the force of gravity at correct times to avoid another horrific death. In the real world, we obviously cannot flip the forces of gravity. Discounting that fact, there are still some inconsistencies with these devices. A factor to note with these devices is they do not always apply to all objects in the area. This is particularly noticeable in the level where the player has to levitate a box in order to move it to a different part of the stage. Logically, this gravity device would also flip the playable character. This device does not flip the character however. The choice to not accurately manipulate the playable character is, again, justified. With the particular instance mentioned above, it would defeat the purpose of the level. The box is needed to let the playable character reach an upper floor; if the gravity device also flipped the character, it would make this level too easy for the player. The game designers took artistic license with the gravity devices in this game for the purpose of challenging the player. Another justified reason for having these gravity devices is simply to make this strange world even stranger. It unsettles the player and further builds this fantastical world.

Gravity device affecting box, but not boy

Gravity device affecting both boy and box

            The third example of manipulating the laws of physics is seen with the inconsistent lighting changes throughout the game. The level I used in particular in when the player enters a more industrial part of the game and the lighting is seen as coming from below in the sky. In the next scene when the player returns to a forest area, the light is clearly coming above in the sky. LIMBO is a black and white game so the use of silhouettes and contrast is crucial for the look and clarity of the game. Thus, while the changing light is not always accurate, it is always the best way to make the scene capture the player’s attention. This is also somewhat disproved, where the levels change from being outside to inside, and then there are clear sources of lights from light bulbs.

Lighting seen from below

Lighting from above in next scene

            In conclusion, LIMBO has several distinct instances of breaking the laws of physics. The game designers for this game, however, did not disregard the laws of physics. They manipulated and recreated the laws to enhance the look and playability of the game. While the little boy looks somewhat distorted, it is to make it clear to audience he is a child in a scary place. When the gravity device does not flip every object upside down, it is to make the game even more challenging to the player. When the lighting coming from all sorts of different angles through the game, it is to make the imagery look haunting and beautiful. LIMBO is a clever game. It is so clever that the player does not even care if the laws of physics are not correct. The players are too sucked into this addicting, deadly world and their only thought is to survive.

Outline for First Essay: Laws of Physics in LIMBO

Hi everyone, here is my outline. I realized that while LIMBO is a fairly stranger game, it's breaking of laws of physics makes a lot of sense. In their own way, they also create new laws that also work. For the times listed below, I used this video as a reference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RWGZBZhr1g


I.      Introduction

a.     Indie video game LIMBO (2010)

b.     Thesis: In the puzzle video game, LIMBO, the laws of physics are broken in various ways in order to make the player feel at ill ease and lost in this dark world.

II.    Body

a.     Unrealistic super strength for a small child

                                              i.     The child can push a giant spider that is easily twice his size. (17:07)

                                            ii.     The little boy’s body is too small to support his head size.

                                          iii.     His arms and legs are too small to push himself up on the various ledges in the game. (33:36)

                                            iv.     However, there is various times when the boy dies from a jump that is too high.

b.     Impossible laws of gravity

                                              i.     There are devices that flip the force of gravity in different directions. (1:17:29)

                                            ii.     There are devices that flip the force of gravity, but do not apply to all objects. (1:10:56)

                                          iii.     The background in the game is often depicted upside-down which contradicts the true direction of gravity. (1:17:43)

                                            iv.     While these devices do break the laws of gravity, they also recreate them and make the player obey the new force of gravity.

c.     Unclear light sources

                                              i.     Often there is ambient light that simply illuminates the background, but this constantly changes throughout the game.

                                            ii.     This can be seen in the scene when the first enters the industrial part of the game, the lighting is coming from below. (20:56)

                                          iii.     In the next scene the light is coming from above when he goes back into the forest. (22:47)

                                            iv.     However, a good majority of the game takes place inside where the light sources are from lamps, a clear direct source.

III.   Conclusion

a.     Laws of physics are bent in various ways, while creating new believable laws of physics.

b.     This distortion in reality is meant to make the player feel uncomfortable in this strange world, and this forces the player to adapt to survive this treacherous game.