Building a Scene in Maya

For this assignment I used Maya for the first time. I constructed the letters out of rectangles and then had a friend show me how to change the colors of the objects. I just added a light to this scene so that the letters would show up better, the lighting was not intended for the extra credit. I also brightened the photo in photoshop because the image was very dark. Overall it was an interesting first try at maya and I'm excited to learn more.

Third Term Paper

My first two term paper scores were both above 80; I will not be writing a third term paper.

Outline for the Third Term Paper

I. Intro: For this paper, I would like to analyze two different approaches in film to creating realistic looking tsunami waves. Both the films "The Impossible," and "The Wave" feature massive, destructive waves that are so large that special effects animation must be used in order to capture a sense of realism.

II. Body:
     a. The film "The Impossible" is a combination of live action Tsunami simulations combined with CGI special effects to make a realistic looking Tsunami. The Usage of special effects is pulled off well because it meshes well with the live action and the film clearly had a high budget.

     b. The film "The Wave," pulled off the effect of creating a Tsunami with less of a realistic feel to it. The wave was clearly animated entirely in 3D and therefore just doesn't quite look right. It simply looks like it wasn't fully rendered realistically, and the movement of the wave also feels unnatural.

III. Conclusion: Both films display a similar 3D approach to creating a Tsunami, however "The Impossible" works significantly better because of the combination of real life scenes meshed with the CGI in the background/ not in the focal point.

Character Animation

For this project we decided to team up! Our group consists of Rita O-Young, Sean Donovan, and Johnny Sim.

We started out by first compiling our various characters and then planning by writing down our ideas in a chronological order of events that would occur. We decided upon a cheesy action movie type of plot for our story, with the clay mini-sean figurine being the antagonist and the superhero figurines being the heroines. Our John Cena toy served to be our damsel in distress. After deciding on our story, we began to prep to begin shooting. Rita drew the simple backgrounds for the shots, Sean prepared the camera with the tripod to measure our frame size, and Johnny attached string to all of our characters for easier manipulation. After all of this prep, we were ready to start animating. We also ended up doing extra prep between each shot depending on when a new background was needed or the characters needed more string attached to them.

 In terms of ideas, we definitely collaborated a ton while hashing out the story and deciding on how to shoot the scenes and which various jokes we wanted to include. For the majority of the animation Sean was manning the camera and helping direct the shots, Rita held the strings of the characters and animated some characters, and Johnny did a majority of character animation. The way we animated the more complicated scenes was that Rita would hold the strings of the characters to keep them in place as Johnny would move the character and Sean was photographing.

We definitely did switch off with animating and photographing, for example the "hacker" scene was photographed by Johnny and animated by Rita. Sean did a majority of directing the look of each shot. For the most part we stuck to our original roles, switching off where needed. With the car drift scene we definitely took inspiration from what we learned in class.

Post production was definitely pretty challenging, we switched off photographing with Sean/s camera and Johny's Surfacebook so we had to combine photos from two sources. We then compiled all of our footage from both devices in Premier. Sean and Johnny did the majority of compilation in Premier while Rita wrote out our blog post. We then recorded audio together on Johnny's Surfacebook and synced it into the Premier file.

Our goal with this project was to make something both memorable and hilarious. Upon looking at our final product we're definitely happy with it! We were able to do much more as a team than if we had worked alone. Remember to listen with audio!

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction

The beauty of animation lies not only in the beautiful visual effects and fantastical ideas that can be conveyed, but also largely in the subtleties of the animated movements. Although to non-animators the differences between movements that are exaggerated and those that follow realistic physics might not be obvious, the presence of both kinds of movements are actually incredibly important to animation and story. Even someone who cannot animate can notice unrealistic movement and when done well can be quite humorous or dramatic. Good animation has a balance between realistic movement and strategic moments of exaggeration, and is not simply random in its moments of deviation from reality. This essay will be an analysis of the paths of actions of moving characters and objects, analyzing how bounces, jumps, and falls in a variety of movies do not follow the laws of physics by having incorrect timing, spacing, or a lack of weight. These unrealistic physics in all of the following scenarios are used with a specific intent and purpose, which is what makes them so interesting to analyze.

In the film Kung Fu Panda the laws of physics are exaggerated quite a bit. Specifically, the bounce of a character down several flights of stairs is extremely unrealistic for comedic effect. In this scene the very chubby panda protagonist is fighting with a leopard. When the leopard tackles the panda the laws of physics are broken as the two fly hundreds of feet through the air and then upon landing survive and bounce down stone steps as if the panda is a bouncy ball. The physics of the tackle itself are inaccurate with the momentum of the leopard running at the panda resulting in a flying out about 300 feet from the edge of the platform. In addition, the path of action of the fall is not parabolic but rather a long horizontal fall to the side and then more of an abrupt drop off closer to the end of the fall, which is physically impossible. Upon landing, the panda intertwined with the leopard are exaggerated to be bouncy due to the panda’s roundness whereas in reality his immense weight would not result in such a light, beachball-like bounce. Interestingly, the bounces down the stairs follow arcs in a parabolic path with each bounce having a smaller apex, so the figures were a bouncy ball the bounce would be correct. This deviation from realistic physics is used for comedic effect as well as to dramatize the entire fight scene.

           Another example of exaggerated paths of actions occurs in the film Tarzan. This movie also has many instances where the physics are exaggerated for the sake of the story and for entertainment value. One scene that displays incorrect physics is a scene in Tarzan that features Gorillas perched on top of barrels and bouncing along the ground lightly, moving forward with each jump. The gorillas bounce around on the barrels very quickly and lightly with no anticipation for each jump and covering a lot of ground. This is physically impossible because of the disparity between the weight and shape of the gorillas and barrels with the lightness and speed of the movement. Not only is the average young male gorilla about 300 pounds or more which would severely impact the ability of the barrel to bounce so lightly, but the barrels would not physically be able to squash and stretch as they do in the film. The wood would likely splinter from the impact but in the scene the barrels have properties akin to a rubber ball. The jumps are also very evenly spaced and the apexes of each jump are pretty equal, which is also unrealistic. Unlike a ball bounce, individual jumps with varying momentum would probably not be so uniform in their arcs. The purpose of the gorillas bouncing around on the barrels is purely for entertainment and comedy during one of the lighthearted moments in the movie.

A final example of incorrect physics in terms of arcs, spacing, and path of action is displayed in the film The Road to El Dorado. During a scene where the character are engaging in an Ancient Mayan ball game the main characters are doing terribly. They hit the ball and it misses the goal, bouncing past the opposing team. The ball bounces in the exact same arc past the team as all of their heads synchronize moving up and down with the even moment of the ball. The ball bounce is too evenly spaced to be realistic and hits same apex during each bounce as well as having the exact same arc length. This is not physically possible for a ball bounce, especially if the ball bounces about 5 times within the shot. The ball bounce should have a progression of parabolic arches that decrease proportionally with each bounce. The even-ness of the spacing is used for comedic effect, which is made obvious by the synchronicity between the bounce and background characters. The hilarious movement of the characters with the ball emphasizes the mistake and exaggerates their shock at how poorly the protagonists are performing in the game.

In conclusion, these movies all have some deviations from realistic paths of action and bounces for the purpose of drawing the audience's attention to certain movements and adding emotion and humour to the scenes. The humorous bounce of the panda and leopard down the hill is much more memorable because of its exaggeration, and plays much more with the imagination of the audience and makes the film feel much more fantastical. These deviations from reality are all used with a purpose and are a tool used by the animators to make each film and scene unique. If all of the films displayed only perfectly accurate physics there would be so much less expression and originality that could be expressed. Knowing how to properly animate realistic physical movement is vital to being a good animator, and so is knowing when to stray from the rules.