Creating Stereoscopic 3D Images

 Red/Cyan

Recreating Cameras and Lights in Maya

Original

 My Render

Render at 45 degrees

Building a Scene in Maya

"TL"

Special Effects in Animation and Live-Action

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

Outline of the Third Term Paper

Introduction

Snow visual effects

  

Thesis: The comparison of visual effects of snow fall in Legend (1985) and Game of Thrones and how even with different methods that they were both able to achieve realistic qualities of snow.

·       On the film: Legend (1985)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB5379zBbtA

1.    Practical effects designed by Nick Allder

2.    Type of material used

3.    Design of the set to create the snow filled forest

4.    How well the layers and randomization of snow felt

5.    Fantastical snow

·       And the television show: Game of Thrones

https://vimeo.com/104403406

1.    Rodeo FX incorporating cg for particle and fluid simulations

2.    Texture

3.    Randomized and well layered

4.    Weight and the rate it falls

5.    Blending in effortlessly

Conclusion:

Although both examples had different access to the types of medium that were available, both Game of Thrones and Legend are able to create realistic and beautiful snow because of the understanding how snow works.

Character Animation

I chose wet clay as my medium for stop motion animation. I created a simple blob type of character and played around with different key poses to get a feel of how flexible the medium was. This was animated straight ahead with an iPad using the app Stop Motion Studio Pro.

My desk setup:

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

      Explosions that don’t hurt the main or supporting characters is a phenomenon I like to refer to as “plot device armor”. Hollywood is infamous for abusing this type of writing style to protect the characters from any real danger. For that reason, I excluded video games and cartoons because they generally don’t rely so much on realism as long as the story is told in whatever stylization is desirable. Take for example in a video game like Borderlands 2; if high jumps don’t even hurt when the character lands, then the rule of grenades ignoring friendly fire is tied to how the game should be played and the gage on fairness. However, when it comes to films there are expectations of certain level of realism. Idealistically, the realism shown may seem plausible at first, but in reality we are tricked by Hollywood fakery because it’s mainstream to favor more towards entertainment than realism. Explosions not behaving like real explosions or ignoring Newton’s third law is a common entertainment value in film making. Newton’s third law is also known as the conservation of momentum. It states that the first body will exert force on a second body of the equally same and in the opposite direction. The type of explosion that we’re looking for are detonations that create shock waves because of on the high rate of combustion. The characters that are presented in the films Sin City, Hot Fuzz, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier are examples where they are selectively impervious to explosions and defying Newton’s Third law.

Miho's reaction to a grenade (1:31)

        Sin City (2005) is movie riddled with cinematic fiction because the physics are purposefully done in a broken manner. The type of entertainment Sin City was going for was some realism, but with their own set of laws that obviously do not obey laws like the conservation of momentum. A grenades sets off close to Miho’s proximity and sends her flying off gracefully because she apparently can't be damaged by explosions. Not even a singe is left on her for some realism. In reality, the projection that the grenade sends her flying wouldn’t be as theatrical but a more violent reaction to the action. The given radius of the grenade would likely do more than just an effect of “rocket boosting.” To better understand what is going on with Miho’s impervious reaction to the explosion; we must determine what type of explosion it is. The grenade is spherical and most likely the common type called fragmentation. The shards are meant to be damaging after the detonation. For a character like Miho, she’s unphased by the shard and detonation damage. Based on Newton’s third law, Miho will feel the momentum of the high pressure in the detonation and will react by being sent in the opposite direction. The way Miho is sent flying is choreographed to make Miho look resilient, but in reality she would feel the shards, pressure, and heat produced that realistically ruin her steady composure.

Hot Fuzz's Naval Mine Explosion example

         At the end of the Hot Fuzz, when the naval mine is set off in the police station evidence room and yet it only kills the one person in the vicinity because Tom Weaver was evil. The mighty plot armor again saves the day or else the movie would be a tragedy and not a comedy. The type of explosion conveyed in this movie is definitely to hype up the entertainment value because the thought of rusty, old naval mine finally going off would be a big payoff. A typical naval mine’s explosive energy is 500 pounds in the form of a detonation. Similar to the grenade, part of the damage done to humans is from fragmentation. The other damage are the shock waves produced are lethal amounts pressure. The main character Nicholas Angel is only about 5 feet from the explosion and easily survives because the movie wasn’t written to be realistic. The fact that only Tom Weaver dies means everyone else was too important to die. When writers selectively choose deaths, they need to understand the consequences of how infuriating that can be to the audience. If the context and tone of the movie is not obvious enough, then the audience will question why everyone is not dead. For an explosion that destructive, bodies shouldn’t even be intact due to fragmentation. Therefore, the movie’s tone is meant to be a less serious and realistic movie and more for humor.

The Falcon's reaction to an aircraft explosion (1:15)

      The type of explosion depicted in Captain America: The Winter Soldier should have the most realism because the tone of the movie is less stylized or humorous than Sin City or Hot Fuzz. A scene that the audience may have not immediately doubted is when the Falcon is dodging a barrage of tracer turrets and a bullet happens to hit an aircraft and exploding near the Falcon. A common type of explosion used in cinemas are vehicles explode due to the gas tank hit by bullets. While gas indeed is flammable, the vehicle exploding is less plausible because it is highly unlikely the gas tank has large quantities of pressurized oxygen to produce the correct chemical reaction to induce the explosion. A slight, but rare chance of explosion is when the bullets used are tracer ammunition. The bullets can be seen visibly even during the day because they are ignited with flammable powder. However, there still needs to be the right conditions to make this explosion happen, the right distance of the rounds being fired to create the right friction and the gasoline tank to still have some sort of pressurized air within. Due to movie magic, the explosion happened because of the right type of conditions happened to have been there. The Falcon was sent flying into the opposite direction because of the first source will exert force equally onto him. However, he appears suspiciously unscathed from the explosion and is more in pain by the landing of the fall. In reality, the fire or shrapnel would have seriously wounded the Falcon, especially since he has less armor covering him overall and doesn’t possess superhuman defense. While inspecting the stills, there does not appear to be any visible damage of the explosion on the Falcon, making the danger appear less of a threat and more of a distraction.

        The illusion of indestructible good guys can be an uplifting but also misleading type of quality in character development. However, because Hollywood is filled with copious amounts of ridiculous explosions that the viewers are usually accustomed to the fact that explosions can selectively hurt people and to amp up the fun factor. An understanding of the physics of explosions and adding a sense of real danger is an important factor for not only the film makers but the audience as well. The diligence of acknowledging the movie’s tone and intentions and even just a basic understanding how the world works can either make or break a movie.