Extra Credit: Lighting A Scene In Maya

One-Point Lighting. 

 Two-Point Lighting.

Three-Point Lighting.

Building A Scene In Maya

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction

No term paper is being submitted.

Outline of the Second Term Paper

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

I. Introduction

a. Introduce the principle of Newton's First Law of Motion (Law of Inertia): An object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force; the same goes for an object at rest

b. Show examples of how Newton's Third Law works in the real world (a person riding a skateboard is suddenly stopped by running into a wall)

c. Hypothesis: Although the media of animated films (or films with CG effects) do not always follow Newton's First Law precisely, they must sometimes break these laws in order to have the style of motion fit in the world of the film for consistency and entertainment

II. Avatar: The Last Airbender

a. Avatar already has a magical-kind of quality to it.  Characters will "bend" certain outside elements to move them (earth, fire, air, or water)

b. "The Blind Bandit" episode: Toph Bei-Fong, an earthbender, uses her hands and feet and swings them in midair or hits the ground and makes other parts of the earth fly out without physically touching them

c. When Aang fights Toph in the ring, he uses bending as well, except he directs the air in different directions to hit her

III. Wreck-It Ralph

a. Felix posses a hammer that does not break things, but repairs when one uses it to hit objects

b. When Felix and Calhoun are stuck in the Nesquik sand, Calhoun must punch Felix to make the Laffy Taffy's lower to the ground.

c. When Felix uses his hammer on himself to heal his injuries, there is no sense of force being acted upon his face; although he hits himself, there is no knockback force

d. This happens to any object Felix uses to fix , including jail bars and windows

IV. Back to the Future: Part II

a. During the Hover Board Chase scene, it is already unusual for the boards to be floating in mid-air without hitting the ground

b. The most interesting part, however, is when Marty McFly uses the same body motions as if he were on a regular skateboard to make the Hover Board move, but his foot is simply skating on air, so there would not be anything to push off to make the board move in reality

V. Conclusion

a. Breaking the Law of Inertia helps make a film more entertaining and takes advantage of being animated or live-action with CG effects (not being limited to what can be animated).

b. It also often times fits in with the kind of style of the film, whether it be enchanted, magical, or simply slapstick

c. As long as physical laws are broken bearing in mind that they are being broken for a reason, the audience will buy into it because for 2 hours they are taken to another universe

Stop-Motion Character Animation

I partnered with Hong-Ly Nguyen to create this stop-motion assignment.  The idea of a video of Harlem Shake sounded entertaining and fun, so we ended up going with that.

We used various stuffed animals and planned out the positioning and type of dance pattern for each character.  The first half of the video with the one character, it was sort of like a sliding walk (or a moonwalk-esque type dance).  Hong-Ly would pose the characters for each different frame (by moving some one-by-one or using string for others) while I took each picture with a camera on a tripod.

After shooting, we had to edit some visible parts out (hand and forearm) in the first half of the video in Photoshop, then we put the photos together and added the music in Adobe Premiere.