Monday, May 12, 2014

Creating Stereoscopic 3D Images

Green/Magenta
STOP! and appreciate. This blog shows a trial run of my very first attempt at making 3D images. I had no idea how easy it was to create these so it was surely a great discovery. I believe that they could be better but for my first time I think they came out decent, especially the photo I took of Tower Hall.
Enjoy!

Green/Magenta

Green/Magenta

Green/Magenta

Green/Magenta

Monday, May 5, 2014

Recreating Cameras and Lights in Maya: Non-Maya Alternative



Hello there.
This assignment I am not as proud of but I can say that I learned a great deal. Maya was giving me trouble as I need to use my older laptop with an older version of Maya and for whatever reason, it kept crashing. My newer laptop is having licensing issues with Maya that I was not able to sort out before this assignment was due. In light of this, I thought that I could successfully recreate the lighting in my Campbell's soup can photograph. As expected, it did prove to be a lot tougher to accomplish this. 

Great assignment, however, not a great execution on my part but I would know what to do differently if and when a challenge like this is introduced once again.


Monday, April 28, 2014

Building a Scene in Maya

Hi there!

This assignment was to build a scene in maya by creating our initials with simple shapes and placing them in the foreground in an interesting and compositionally appealing way. I had a good time with this one except Maya scared me plenty with the spinning wheel of death.
Anyway. Enjoy!
AC

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Outline for the Third Term Paper

Third Term Paper Outline: Special Effects in Animation and Live-Action

Special/Visual Effect: Zero Gravity/Floating

The simulation of zero gravity is and will always be a challenge in the film industry. The two films on topic for discussion are productions that received generous amounts of praise for the dedication to their subject. Inception(2010) and Gravity(2013) both went to great measures to bring zero gravity to Earth.

Inception(2010): Corridor Scene
-Director wanted to keep CGI to a minimum
-Sets built in a hangar in England in order to film the scenes that used rotation and tilts
-Two versions of the corridor were built: one with rotation and the other was stationary
-Actors such as Joseph Gordon-Levitt acted the scenes within the stationary version with a harness and wires so that he could fly and jump from one wall to the other
            -Hallway shown as normal in playback, giving the illusion that the actors are floating           in zero gravity
            -Clothes were also taken into careful consideration. Ex: wires in shoe strings
            -All wires/harnesses were erased for final
-Rotating version of corridor 100 ft long: suspended by large rings and powered by two electric motors.
-A camera was stationed on a plate that ran on a track beneath the floor of the rotating corridor
-Camera was remote controlled



Gravity(2013): Scenes in Space
-Director wanted realism and therefore wanted animators to get close and personal with people that have experienced zero gravity first hand in every situation. Ex: tethered astronaut is accelerated — or two spacewalkers, tethered together, jerk one another around
-Sandra Bullock suspended with a 12-wire rig that resembled a marionette.
-The production brought in the most talented and detail oriented puppeteers in the business to simulate zero gravity
-Computer animation was used to blend what was called the Light Box(simulation of light in space) and the wire rig
-Technological process was very intricate and allowed for little spontaneity. Actors were under extreme time constraints.




Conclusion:

After comparing the two films, I have found that the simulations were done quite well and with generous amounts of precision and accuracy. Being that gravitational forces will always play a role in every action of the human body imaginable, it was quite impressive at how believable these moments were such as the fight in the corridor of the film “Inception” or the dead silent moments in space of “Gravity”. This goes to show that with careful observation and the power to educate oneself of an otherwise improbable experience of an average Joe, any effect can be created.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Character Animation

Hey all!
 
My animation was created using my stationed iPad mini and a can-do attitude. I had a difficult time finding a item that was easily poseable as my boyfriend had given ALL of his used action figures to Goodwill and the remaining are stowed away in their protective packages so I had to improvise. Our stuffed giraffe was the solution along with an empty Patron bottle. This proved to be a great comedic choice. Enjoy and please find the humor in it.
 
 

Friday, March 21, 2014

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction

Countless films manipulate the laws of physics to communicate worlds of unbelievable proportions. Science fiction films involving worlds outside of our own are compelled to stretch the truth, as their world does not exist in our physical world. However, to accomplish this rule breaking, one would need to solve the action in a way that could be believable by giving the action some weight of believability. To give weight would mean to adhere to certain laws in the most basic form so as to not leave the audience butchering the action with analysis. The film industry gains respect when a moment is believable in our world as well as world that we have never experienced. Adhering to the law of inertia in every sense would be believable, however, to the thrill-seeking moviegoer, believable is not always impressive or entertaining for the world introduced.

 Special effects are no stranger in the movie Wanted, directed by Timur Bekmambetov. Wesley, an account manager frustrated with a presumably dead-end job is taken for a whirlwind when Fox, a trained assassin, informs him that his father, also an assassin was killed and the man who committed the murder has a new target. Frequent panic attacks plague Wesley’s daily life but when he is told that these attacks are actually uncontrolled expressions of a superhuman ability, training unleashes a powerful force to be reckoned with. Curving a bullet’s path is the reoccurring skill throughout the film and the topic of this discussion in ignoring the law of inertia and actually playing on another principle of physics.

The movie Wanted portrays a cult of assassins possessing the mystical power of shooting curving bullets around objects and infrastructures to kill their targets. However, curving a bullet is impossible. Only a spherical object can be curved through a fluid due to Magnus forces causing pressure differential. A bullet, a cylindrical object, does occur Magnus forces through a fluid but produces a lift force rather than a curved motion. Therefore, the bullet in motion will stay in motion and not deviate from its path.
           
Star Wars is a movie franchise that encapsulates a grand story of galactic good and evil. The current saga, spanning over six films, portrays the battle between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire. Two factions support these two larger forces: The ancient
Jedi order (galactic peace police) and the Sith (anti-jedi war criminals). These two factions fight on land, sea, air and in space. The space battles consist of hundreds of fighter crafts of all shapes and sizes. They are a pivotal part to the story. However, the space battles themselves will be the point of focus for which we discuss another movie that breaks Newton’s First Law.

During the Battle for Endor, the X-Wing star fighters have the ability to perform agile maneuvers and acrobatic tactics to avoid their enemies. The X-Wings contain four propulsion engines on the rear of the fighter craft that are facing the same direction. With just these four engines, propelling in the same direction, the X-Wing cannot perform such movement. Outer space is a vacuum, meaning it is devoid of the structures and properties of matter. There is no wind and so these fighter crafts do no experience the same drag or have the sane ability to change directions as an aircraft would in the Earth’s atmosphere.
The battles are entertaining because the actions simulate movement that is more recognizable to the average Joe living on Earth. If the film chose to obey the laws of physics in outer space, the known mechanics of the fictional spacecraft and the absence of air would allow only for the fighter crafts to go straight in a constant motion. Therefore, the fighter would need propulsion engines directed in all directions allowing the fighter to change paths. In our universe, an object in motion stays in motion. The fighter craft, given the standalone force of the propulsion engines, would remain going straight unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Speed begins with a terrorist attack involving an elevator along with a witnessed bombing of a bus. The terrorist bomber tips off his next plan of attack to Jack Traven, an officer on the case. Jack is burdened with the horrible truth that a bus is rigged with explosives that will detonate if the vehicle reaches 50 miles per hour.

In the movie Speed the bus under pressure must jump a gap in a highway because stopping is not an option. The opposite ends of the highway gap are relatively flat, allowing for little to no vertical ascension.  When the bus begins to jumps the gap, the front end appears to have a vertical lift before the rear end of the bus even leaves the paved highway.  This would not happen due to the angle of the paved highway .The front of the bus would continue off of the cliff and descend due to the acceleration of gravity. 

Also, upon surviving the jump, the shot of the rear end of the bus seemed to have been above the ground plane of the highway. This contrasted with the first shot of the bus lifting off the cliff, where the rear end of the bus descended the ultimate height of the highway.
These two factors mentioned defy the law of inertia because the action of the bus in the movie would call for additional help to make it happen for the final shot.


For the sake of story, laws of physics, such as the law of inertia could be deviated from in an effort to impress. However, without careful planning, the deviation could offend viewers because the sad attempt to trick the viewer could go horribly wrong. Films across the board, including science fiction, horror films and even romantic comedies may face the challenge to create a believable moment without the chance to physically carry it out. Whether the medium be computer graphics or props being hung by wires, the challenge relies on the careful observation of what actually happens in our tangible world.