Creating Stereoscopic 3D Images

Lighting a Scene in Maya

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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.