Creating Stereoscopic 3D Images

Lighting a Scene in Maya

 One Point Lighting

 Two Point Lighting

Three Point Lighting

Building a Scene in Maya

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Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

Science is what drives the movie industry into the cg powerhouse it is today, but sometimes science isn’t enough when it comes to story. Movies like Transformers or Star Wars aren’t exactly the most believable movie to come out of Hollywood, but they are successful because they entertain the viewers. Hollywood bends physics so that they can tell a story without having to worry about reality getting in the way. But sometimes moviemakers bend physics too much and it ends up looking odd or unnatural; in this paper I will point out some scenes from a few movies that stand out because they don’t follow the rules of conservation of energy. The law of Conservation of Energy dictates that energy can’t be created or destroyed. The scenes I picked are from the following movies and show, respectively: How to Train Your Dragon: The Legends of the Boneknapper Dragon, Clash of the Titans (2010), and The Walking Dead. All of the scenes defy the rules of conservation of energy in one way or the other; be it by having fire breathing dragons, walking corpses, or a stone inducing glaze.

            The first scene that defies the laws of conservation of energy is from the movie How to Train Your Dragon: The Legends of the Boneknapper Dragon. It is actually a short movie made as a bonus for buying the How to Train Your Dragon DVD. It is about a group of Vikings sailing to a deserted island to hunt a fire breathing dragon called the Boneknapper. The Boneknapper is a scaly lizard with large enough wings that allows it to fly and is easily 30 feet tall and 40 feet wide and. It also covers itself in bones to use as armor or decoration, hence the name. The Boneknapper is able to somehow produce fire from within its mouth to shoot at its prey. From the looks of it, the fire does no harm to the dragon internally or externally. Initially it starts out as a green gas and is somehow ignited before leaving the mouth. For the dragon to be able to breathe fire it must be able to withstand the fire as well. A candle flame is about 2,500 degree Fahrenheit, so the Boneknapper must have skin that can bare temperature that is much higher than that in order to not burn itself. Even though there are real animals that can hold in superheat gases, there are none that can actually breathe fire. In the movie, the fire not only does no harm to the dragon, but it also does no harm to the human who are in close proximately of the fire breath. In one of the scenes, the humans were covering behind the ribs of a giant ribcage as fire is blown through the ribcage. The humans look completely safe and unharmed as they were surrounded by fire. If the laws of conservation of energy were in effect, the air around the humans would be heated up hot enough to cook the humans as if they were in an oven. But instead, the humans were left uninjured because it was a kid’s movie and the moviemaker wanted to put their characters in peril without actually harming them. The movie is based in a fantasy world where dragons and humans coexist, so having unrealistic physics doesn’t really harm the entertainment value of this movie. If anything, the unrealistic nature of this movie is probably one of the reasons why it is as successful as it is.

            The second scene that doesn’t follow the laws of conservation of energy is from movie Clash of the Titans (2010). The movie is a remake of a 1981 classic fantasy movie of the same name. The movie is about a Greek hero named Perseus who saved the city of Argos from the vengeful Greek god, Hades. In the movie, there is a scene where he used head of Medusa to turn the gigantic Kraken in to stone. The Medusa is a half snake, half humanoid creature with hair made of snakes and she capable of turning any living creature into stone just by making eye contact with it. Perseus was able cut off the head of Medusa by using a mirror to see it instead of direct eye contact. The head of Medusa was still alive for the rest of the movie after being cut off, and because of that, its glaze was still effective. The Kraken is a gigantic sea creature with tentacles; in the scene, it was called in by Hades to destroy the city Argos. To stop the Kraken from destroying the city, Perseus got really close to the creature and makes it stare at Medusa’s eyes. The gaze almost instantly turns the giant into stone and not able to withstand its own weight, the creature crumbles. The problem here is that the glaze was able to somehow chemically change the state of the fleshy, mostly liquid creature into complete stone. It doesn’t follow the laws of conservation of energy because Medusa’s head was able to convert a giant amount of energy with a gaze; a gaze from a behead creature that shouldn’t even be alive anymore, no less. The scene is far from believable but it was very impressive to watch a creature as big as the Kraken being turned into stone in such a cinematic way.

            The third and final scene is from the new TV show, The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead is about a cop trying to find his family after waking up from a coma. After waking up, he finds himself in a world where the dead walks around looking for living creatures to eat. The walking dead are the typical zombies that were once humans who got infected from zombie bites or scratches. The zombies are in a perpetual state of hunger and exist solely for the chance to eat survivors. In the show, there are many zombies that are seriously injured with missing limbs or even half their body missing. The only way to kill a zombie is to damage its brain. Zombies are seen still alive even after decapitation or extremely malnourished. One particular scene that stands out as defying the laws of conservation of energy is when they showed the zombies roaming around on a hot day in Atlanta. The zombies are shuffling around aimlessly with open wounds and their guts hanging out. Even with their conditions, most of them are able to walk, crawl, or even climb without tiring. They still retain much of the motor skills of their former self. This defies the laws of conservation of energy because many of the zombies haven’t eaten for a very long time, but are able to do things like walk without much effort. The zombies are able to do things that are not possible for mammals, like surviving without food, water, or even air. Like the Mudusa’s Head, the zombies are perfectly capable of living without its body. For us regular human beings, we need to take in food, water and air to produce energy to move our bodies, but for some reason the zombies in this show can create energy from nothing to keep themselves alive. This is in direct opposition of the rule that said energy can’t be create or destroyed. Another interesting thing about the zombies is that they don’t decompose; even in the hot sun or rain. Zombie movies tend to make viruses as the main cause to a zombie outbreak, but they never try to explain how a virus is able to sustain a living corpse from decomposing or starving. These kinds of movies and shows are popular because it scares us into thinking what is possible when it comes to viral infections, especially one that can be created in a lab. But in the end, Hollywood zombies are just not realistically possible due to the laws of conservation of energy.

            When it comes to fantasy or zombie movies, it doesn’t really matter too much if a scene is realistic or not, because it in the end, all that matters is if the movie does its job of entertaining the viewers. My selections aren’t exactly the cream of the crop for their genres, but they are all popular pieces that can relate to many of the movies out there today. One of the reasons why these movies are given free passes to bend physics is because the viewers don’t care if they are being fooled and looking for a realistic environment is never the intention when coming into a theatre or sitting down in front of a big screen TV. The audience is looking for escape from realism when they watch movies and shows like How to Train Your Dragon: The Legends of the Boneknapper Dragon, Clash of the Titans (2010), and The Walking Dead. The audience isn’t dumb because they didn’t notice if the laws of conservation of energy were being ignored in a movie, but instead, they just didn’t care to notice.

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction? Outline

2^nd Term Paper Outline

I.                    Introduction

a.       Conservation of Energy

                                                               i.      Energy can’t be created or destroyed

II.                  How to Train Your Dragon: The Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon

a.       The Boneknapper was able to produce fire from within itself and breathe it out to attack the humans without hurting itself internally.

b.      The Boneknapper is a giant scaly lizard covered in bones, and it can fly.

c.       The fire breathe from the Boneknapper doesn’t seem to hurt the human in the proximately unless they are directly hit by it.

III.                The Walking Dead

a.       Zombies are roaming around the city months after they are decomposing

b.      Many of the zombies are missing limbs or even half their bodies but still able to move around

c.       The rain and the hot sun doesn’t affect their rotting flesh

IV.                The Clash of the Titan (2010)

a.       Medusa’s glaze can change any living creature into stone

b.      It turned a giant kraken into stone in less than half a minute

c.       Medusa’s head was still alive after decapitation

V.                  Conclusion

a.       Many stories that ignore the conservation of energy have to do with it being in a fantasy world. Some stories just pretend that it doesn’t matter and have a plot place around the people instead of the physics. 

Extra Credit: Pixar

Stop-Motion Character Animation

I used a posable figure to do this assignment. I put a miniature football helmet on it and had it hold a rubber easer as if it was a football. I tried to animate it as if it was running down a football field to score a touchdown. For some reason lighting changed at towards the end even though I didn't mess with it. This assignment was a bit more difficult to do  than I had thought since putting the figure into certain positions was hard to do.

Reverse Video Reference of Walking

Physics in Aladdin

Aladdin is one of Disney’s most well know animated features. The movie was released in 1992 to critical acclaim. It is a story about a street rat named Aladdin who happens upon a magic lamp with a genie inside. The genie promises him 3 wishes with almost limitless possibility. Aladdin’s first wish was to become a Prince so he can marry a Princess that he fell in love with. The main villain, Jafar, eventually found out who Aladdin really was and stole his lamp. Aladdin ended up having to fight Jafar to save the city and the Princess. While the story of Aladdin is not very unique, it is very entertaining and well made. The movie has a lot of action scenes that defies physics but does not take the viewers out of the movie. There are moments when gravity seems to don’t work correctly, bodies stretching out of proportions, and a lack of deceleration and acceleration. The physic bending scenes are so well made that it seems almost believable. In this paper, I will talk about how some scenes are made to entertain movie watchers rather than be realistic.

The gravity or lack of gravity in this movie makes world of Aladdin to be a place of very low gravity and things won’t fall as fast as they should like in the real world. For example, the scene where Aladdin was chased by the royal guards, he grabbed a regular old carpet and jumped out the window. Aladdin was able to use the carpet to glide himself and his monkey pal, Apu, to safety. The guards that followed Aladdin out the window makes a dead stop in mid-air and then drop down after a short pause onto a wagon full of fertilizer, for a comical effect. As Aladdin descends, he used the carpet as a parachute to land on the ground slowly and harmlessly. Realistically, there is no way for the carpet to have enough air resistance for Aladdin to safely glide down. The carpet is way too small and it has no sides for it to trap the air like with normal parachutes. This is scene was very light hearted and funny, and if realistic physics were added to this scene, then everyone that jumped out of the window would have surely died or be seriously injured from the fall. Another scene where there was a lack of gravity, was when Jafar let go of Aladdin and let him plummets downward into an abyss. After falling for several stories, he hits a rocky ledge and gets saved by a magic carpet right after. Aladdin was only knocked unconscious from the impact, but in real life, a fall like that would have done much more damage to his body. In the parade where Aladdin was making his way into the city as a Prince, Genie grabbed the ankles of a nearby peasant and run him into other peasants, making a stack of people. The stack of people starts to tower over and around Aladdin, and for a while it seems that they can hold themselves together effortlessly as they shake Aladdin’s hand. A tower of people like that in the real world would absolutely fall over, but in Aladdin, gravity tends to be lighter for certain moments.

Aladdin is full of moments that defy the law of physics, and many of those moments are due to the exaggerations of the body when it stretches and squash. One of such moments was when the guards were falling after jumping out the window chasing after Aladdin. They were huddled together and one by one they drop in a comical matter. Each one of the guards experiences a stretch as if their lower half was being pulled by gravity first then their top half follows. It is as if gravity is literally yanking them down by the ankles. It is funny to see each guards taking turns getting what they deserve, but it isn’t fooling anyone into thinking it was suppose to be realistic. Another scene with exaggerated stretch was when Apu was trying to steal a melon with his body hanging from his tail. His tail acted like a bungee cord, letting him bounce up a down with significant stretch on his tail. When the merchant pulls on Apu, his tail stretch at about double its initial length. Even though monkeys can hold their own weight by their tails, they can’t stretch very much due to its being made of flesh and bones. Apu was also caught over stretching his mouth when he was about to bite Jafar. Jafar was about to stab Aladdin so Apu jumps onto his arm to try to stop him. His mouth opened at 180 degrees (something that even a snake can’t do) right before chomping down Jafar’s wrist. This exaggeration shows how much power went into Apu’s bite and even though it was not realistic, it helps express the pain that Jafar will experience. Stretching gives the character more expression and allows them to exaggerate beyond what live action actors can do. Live action movies can never express the extreme emotional ranges that animated characters can because they are bounded by real physics that prevents them from having their eyes popped out or jaws hitting the ground when they see something shocking.

A big offender of physics in this movie is the magic carpet and I will dedicate this whole section for it. The magic carpet constantly accelerates and decelerates with riders on it but never has a problem with keeping them on even when it stops on a dime. The magic carpet has a smooth surface and easily holds two people but it has nothing for the rider to hold to or buckle down with. In one scene, Aladdin is flying through the palace on the magic carpet to greet the Sultan. He swoops down towards the Sultan at high speed but stops immediately right before hitting him. Realistically, an act like this should have Aladdin flying off the carpet and into the Sultan. The carpet is magic, so maybe he can accelerate and decelerate anytime he wants, but Aladdin has no such magic that we know off. On to the scene when both Aladdin and Jasmine were on the carpet for the first time, they got onto the carpet and flew away at high acceleration with nothing to hold them down but their own weight. And it was made even more difficult to believe because the magic carpet was going upward which should have made the riding couple falls backwards. The scene should have looked like how if a person was to pull a tablecloth quickly away from under a vase. The vase, in this case, Jasmine and Aladdin shouldn’t have moved and the carpet should have flown off without them. Another instance of the magic carpet cheating physic is when Jasmine and Aladdin are flying and the carpet does a quick loop around them. In the scene, the magic carpet quickly lets them go, putting the couple into a freefall until the carpet catches them. When the couple was in a free fall, they didn’t decelerate in the direction they were going but instead, they just stop and fall straight down. They should have fell in a parabolic arch from where carpet flew out from underneath them. To add to the craziness, right after the magic carpet catches them, it goes upside down with the couple hanging on with no problem. The only way to make sense of the physic with it comes to riding the magic carpet is that the carpet can magically stick on to the riders so the riders won’t fall when the carpet breaks or accelerates immediately.

Aladdin is a movie full of magic and wonderful animation and it does its job quite well, which was to entertain. It features lots of physic defying moments because it sets itself up as a magical and comical story. Being physically incorrect brings a defining element to the movie because of how light hearted and fun it was. If this movie were to be grounded with real-life physic, then it wouldn’t be as magical or expressive. The bending of physic never bothers viewers because it was consistent to its world and was never jarring. Live action movies like Speed takes the viewer out of the movie when physically impossible things are happening on screen. When they present a realistic movie and then put in something that makes the viewer thinks if it is possible or not, it makes that part of the movie sticks out like a sore thumb and takes the audience out of the movie. Aladdin stays entertaining while being consistence throughout, so the audience never needs to ask if they are being tricked or not. To remake all of those scenes that I pointed out into something realistic would ruin the movie and take away the magic that it produced. The expressive stretching, the magical gravity, and the impossible speeds that the movie utilized made Aladdin one of the best animated movies ever made, technique wise and entertainment wise.


Note: Couldn't add images due to Blogger being on maintenance.


I didn’t follow my original outline and came up with a new one that I think works much better.

I. Introduction
a. Brief description of the movie
b. Brief talk about physics in the movie
c. The movie bends physics to make it more entertaining.

II. Gravity
a. Aladdin fall out of window; using a carpet to glide down
b. Aladdin falls from a cliff and get saved by flying carpet
c. Tower of people shaking Aladdin’s hand

III. Squash and Stretch
a. Guards falling out of a window
b. Apu’s tail act as a bungee cord
c. Apu’s mouth opens at 180 degree

IV. Acceleration and Deceleration
a. Aladdin being stopped on a dime
b. Aladdin and Jasmine accelerates greatly
c. Aladdin and Jasmine loses movement immediately

V. Conclusion
a. Physics in Aladdin are consistent in its own world; the movie was made to entertain rather than be realistic

Paper outline

Aladdin

        I.          Introduction

a.      Brief description of the movie

b.      Brief talk about physics in the movie

c.      Hypothesis

     II.            Gravity

a.      Aladdin and Jasmine jumps from one roof to another using a pole

b.      Aladdin falls from a cliff and get saved by flying carpet

c.      Flying carpet ride had parts that doesn’t seem believable

  

   III.            Squash and Stretch

a.      Genie’s movement

b.      Carpet’s body as it get stuck under a rock

c.      Peasants’ immediate gathering to pick up gold

  IV.            Action/ Reaction exaggerations

a.     Parade bursting through the door of the palace

b.     Camel buckles under the weight on its luggage and rider

c.     Aladdin falls on a pillow to minimal effect

     V.            Conclusion

a.     Physics in Aladdin are not consistent; some events are believable but most are not.

Stop Motion Animation of Falling

I used a simple point and shoot digital camera to take the pictures. The objects I used were a penny, a box cutter, a blank canvas, and some masking tape. I taped the box cutter at the top of the canvas so I can have the penny roll off of it. The penny is stuck on the canvas with masking tape on its backside. I took about 20 pictures ,but ended up only using 14 of them. It was an interesting project since I have never done stop motion animation before.

Jump Reference Tracker Image

Jump Reference Video

Tracker video analysis of falling

Object Drop Reference Video

Dropping a Soccer Ball from around 4 feet.

A Little about Me

Hello, I am Duy Hoang. I am currently a senior at San Jose State University working on getting my Design Studies major. My goal is to make a good portfolio and get an internship that is related to my field before graduating next Spring. 

I enrolled into Art 123 to understand animation better because I want to do motion graphics in the future. 

Here are a couple of past projects I did.

Here is a piece of animation that I found very interesting.

First Post, Ignore