Creating Stereoscopic 3D Images

 

All of them are red/cyan pairs. The first one works quite well the other two are harder. All the shots I had of the campus failed to work so I had to try to create a scene using the lighting exercise model.

 

 

 

 

 

Recreating Cameras and Lights in Maya

 

original photo

 

Maya attempt:

 

 

 



second original photo

 

Maya attempt

 

 

 

 



 

 

Building a Scene in Maya

Special Effects in Animation and Live-Action

My first two term paper scores were 91 and 95; I will not be writing a third term paper.

Outline for the Third Term Paper

Avalanches in Film

A. INTRODUCTION- rough

            When one thinks of special effects in film, they often think of fire, ice, snow water and explosions. Rarely do they get any more specific as to think of avalanches. It is true that there are only a handful of examples of avalanches in film, and even less successful attempts at it. Both Ice Age and On Her Majesty's Secret Service contain avalanches of some sort and both of them could use some reworking. However, what they did achieve was a sense of believability in their avalanche attempts. Through animating on different layers to superimposing man made avalanches, these two films showcase how avalanches can be produced in film, but also how much farther the film industry has to go to produce better ones.

B: BODY- polished

I. Ice Age

            In the beginning of "Ice Age", Scrat accidentally sets off an avalanche. The animators on Ice Age separated each individual piece of glacier shard to move on its own in their animation program, then put them all together into one gigantic monster of an avalanche. To do this, the animators put the glaciers on separate layers of animation and the huge glacier moving towards Scrat on its own layer. They also stressed how they were not trying to create a realistic avalanche, but rather a cartoon version of it to suit the scene, which is why there are glacier shards "chasing" after Scrat.

            The way the shards move is not really realistic as it seems to have a life of its own but it fits in the world that has been created in "Ice Age". Studying actual avalanches and glacier attacks are important for the animators, which was probably neglected a bit due to their idea of wanting to heighten the comedy of the scene. What results is a believable effects animation in that world, but viewed today, the shards move too uniformly and could use a bit more sporadic changes in the pace and shard's paths of action. In other words, more randomness could create a greater sense of the naturalistic monster that an avalanche can be in real life.

II. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

            The massively uneven 007 "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" contains an avalanche scene that was created from a man-made avalanche, stock footage, special effects and edits. Cliff Culley, Robert Browne and Roy Field shot their man-made avalanche in Pinewood Studios in London using some fake trees and salt as snow. After they had completed their simulation, Culley and his crew used optical effects to superimpose the salt and trees onto the footage where 007 and his soon-to-be-bride Tracy were skiing. This gave the effect that the snow was closing in and would soon be devouring the two lovebirds. Due to Director Peter Hunt's excessive love for quick cuts, stock footage of avalanches were also implemented to "heighten" the drama and tension of the scene.

            The stock footage used for the avalanche was quite successful in showing hulking amounts of snow racing down the mountains of Switzerland. However, artistically it falls flat because it doesn't show its relation to the characters. The stock footage doesn't give any emotional cues to the audience because the angle at which the footage is shown is flat which gravely reveals the stock nature of the footage. The edits that Peter Hunt made are excessive and reminds one of the ill-realized attempts at "heightening" action in the Bourne films and other recent action films. The aspect that really destroys any element of reality in the scene, for me at least, was the wonky perspective that is shown behind James Bond and Tracy when they have their medium shots. The background is shaking quite violently even when the characters are just skiing in a relatively straight line. It is obvious then that the backgrounds were added after the actors filmed their skiing scenes in the studio.

C. CONCLUSION- rough

            Obviously filming an avalanche is far more difficult than using an animation program to do it but the overall effect that both films wanted was the same. The avalanche was to be a huge monster of nature that would try but fail to devour the protagonist (Scrat, 007 and Tracy). The avalanche in Ice Age was successful in presenting the danger of the avalanche but failed to make it as believable as it could be even within the universe that it had created. The uniform movements and even pacing of the natural disaster made it seem too artificial. On Her Majesty's Secret Service's quick cuts and stock footage also gave the scene a stale feeling of unfocused direction. All that aside however, both films do allow the avalanches to give the characters a sense of bedlam and if one was to combine the realism in the Bond picture with the heightened danger in Ice Age, the avalanche would work wonders.

 

Character Animation

 

 

 

       For this animation, I made sure to plan out the scenes first so I would not be going into the staging and composition of the characters blind. The basic premise was that it would start out with 007 trying to hunt his nemesis Dr. Julius No. However, upon finding and preparing to subdue the good doctor, James Bond falls in love with him. He drops the gun and the two presumably make out. I know that I haven't exactly achieved the heights of Ang Lee and his Brokeback Mountain, but I tried.

 

       There are several  moments such as the beginning and end where Photoshop came to use and also when Bond raises his eyebrows. I felt the shot was necessary to really push the idea that Bond liked what he saw. There are a couple of areas such as when Bond "checks out" Dr. No that I wish I could have done better but somehow his body always moves in the most infuriating ways when I move him. There were also some shots where I needed to put Bond or Dr. No on a stand, so I had to paint that out on Photoshop. Well that's about it. Hope the animation reads.

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

             Action films have entranced countless generations, but of course reality can only bring so much to the screen in terms of excitement and wonder. As the decades passed and film became more technically innovative, the action genre has become more "colorful". By the turn of the century, fantasy and action welded together and films such as ones featuring superheroes have suspended the laws of physics to entertain and indulge the audience. This heightened reality, however, comes at a price. Because many of the feats the characters in these films are able to pull off have not been attempted in real life, the filmmakers oftentimes need to test it out themselves, only to realize that sometimes a certain action is too slow or too quick for the general masses to notice and appreciate it on the screen. This causes them to break some laws of physics in order to present a more aesthetically pleasing product. A common physics problem in these recent action films are the impossible jumps. Using the jump magnification equation (jump height divided by push height) and the push time equation (jump time divided by jump magnification), many characters in recent blockbusters do not adhere to either of these equations when they are performing jumps.

             In the first Spider-Man (the superior 2002 Sam Raimi version), the audience is presented with a being who's abilities are so supernatural, he can swing from building from building using only webs that sling out of his hand when he positions his hands in such a way in which it looks like a gang sign. The character of Spider-Man is also very agile and can react faster and stronger than a regular human being. In a particular scene, as Spider-Man races to save Mary Jane Watson from the clutches of his archenemy, the hammy Green Goblin, we see him jumping from one festival balloon to another. Since the web-slinging hero takes approximately a little less than a second for his push time with a jump magnification of perhaps 20 feet, the jump time should really be about a little less than 20 seconds. However, in the film, Spider-man is able to jump to the next balloon in a matter of two seconds. This does not adhere to the jump magnification and the push time found using the equations. The filmmakers must have known this but decided to use creative licensing and sped up Spider-man's jump time to add to the energy during his first battle scene with Green Goblin. If Sam Raimi and his crew had allowed Spider-Man to take 20 full seconds to leap up and slowly descend down to another balloon for him to have enough momentum to leap to Green Goblin, it would slow down the pacing of the action scene and the Green Goblin probably would have already been done assaulting Mary Jane Watson.

            Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon contains a similar lack of adherence to the relationships between the jump magnifications and push times. Throughout the entire film, characters are able to jump and even fly great distances with very little push time. However, given that the characters often jump or fly to such great heights, their jump time should usually be even faster for them to be able to jump to such an extreme height. A subtle example is when Jen steals the Green Destiny sword and is confronted by one of the bumbling guards. She jumps on top of him for about half a second (push time) and jumps to a height of at least 5 feet into the air. The push height was relatively low so perhaps it was about 1 foot. Therefore the jump magnification would be five feet. Adding that to the push time formula, the jump time (about a second) divided by the jump magnification of five feet simply does not equal the push time of half a second. In order for the push time equation to work, Jen would have to have a jump time of 2.5 seconds which in the film is only about less than 2 seconds. The timing in this example is a lot closer to being accurate than the one provided in Spider-Man and it's quite surprising to find that the jump time should have been longer when all the characters were on wires to give the audience the illusion that these supernatural beings were flying or jumping. There are still even other examples in the film where the push time is not fast enough for the characters to jump to such a height, but the motivation behind this remains the same for the filmmakers. They want the audience to feel the push of the jump and experience the balletic movement when the characters are suspended in the air. The accuracy of the timing takes a back seat.

 The last example is from Disney Pixar's The Incredibles. In the same vein as Spider-Man, this film follows super beings around as they perform various "incredible" feats. As an overweight Bob Parr tries to fend off a mediocre version of the Omnidroid, he makes an incredible leap of about 30 feet into the air to get over the Omnidroid and give it a nice right hook. His push height is about one and a half feet, meaning his jump magnification would be about 20 feet. Since the jump time was a little bit less than two seconds, Mr. Incredible's push time should be about 1/10 of a second long. In the film, it would have been almost impossible to notice the 1/10 of a second which was why the filmmakers made it just a tidbit longer for the audience to feel and notice the push time. This is the opposite problem with Spider-Man in which Peter Parker's push time is too long for the given jump time he has in the film. Like the example in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brad Bird's main purpose was to show the audience the effort of the push and the flow of the jump.

            Of all the examples presented, it would be belittling to the filmmakers to believe that they thought they had adhered to the jump magnification and push time equations. The three crews probably all knew that that their films did not adhere to some laws of physics but decided not to in order to heighten the drama, excitement and action. Spider-Man's speed, Jen's athletic skill and Mr. Incredible's mobility are all showcased at the expense of the accurate jumps. Fantasy and animated films such as the three mentioned have always been about imitating life, not copying it. When these movies copy life exactly, the mundane and often stiff nature of the actions will clash with the world that has been built in the alternate reality. Films of this sort must tweak and sometimes alter the laws of physics to help accentuate the actions and the world that is being created. Only then will the film be believable and yet fantastical at the same time.