Stereoscopic 3D Images

Red/Cyan glasses 

Recreating Cameras and Lights in Maya

Here is the original #5924


Here is mine

And here is the other side of it.

Here is 5861
 

mine

turned


Here is 5795

Mine

turned

Extra Credit: Lighting a Scene in Maya

1 point

2 point

3 point

Building a Scene in Maya

Outline for the Third Term Paper

Special Effects in Animation and Live-Action

I would like to talk about the use of crazy extreme blood in media. There are many ways to achieve this look, from CGI to plastic bags under the actors shirt. The sheer amount of blood often contributes to comedy, whether intended or not.

Arguably started on the film Sanjuro, where there was a malfunction for the pump and the director decided to keep it in. 

In the first kill Bill they filled condoms with blood and put them under the actors clothes.

In 300, they use CG and try to make it match the style of the comic book.

There are many different ways to achieve this look, and the only thing audiences will wonder is how they contained that much blood in the first place.

Stop-Motion Character Animation

I wanted to animate a bully pumpkin taking the food away from a more naive, innocent pumpkin. I had two small pumpkins left over from Halloween, and I carved faces in them. Then I stuck a wire in their backs so the mouths would stick together, ans used clay to prop them open. After I shot with a stop motion app, I took it into after effects and added holds where I wanted them.

TERM PAPER: Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

Density

Movies cannot seem to grasp the concept of density. Gold in particular is commonly shown as much lighter than it is. It is shiny and valuable, and is the number one material choice for old civilizations making weird things to leave behind, but the scene where the hero casually picks it up and tosses it around is a mistake. One gold brick weighs almost 30 pounds. In movies, the issue of the density of gold in rarely addressed, and people regularly carry very large amounts of gold with little to no inconveniences. 

In Raiders of the Lost Arc, Indiana Jones has to steel a golden idol from a temple. He carefully walks up to it, eyeballs the weight, and then lightens his bag of sand. He then attempts to make an equal weight replacement, hoping to fool the weight pad. The idol weighed more than sand, but Indy thinks this is a good comparison and when he picks it up it seems quite light. Judging by his hand and guessing small, the idol is about 19 by 9 by 8 centimeter. That would be 1539 cubic cm. 23.5 cubic cm gold is 1 lb. Therefor, if the idol were solid gold it would be 65 lb. He casually tosses it to his friend in the next scene, and neither of them react to the idol as if it were any significant weight.

Another option is if it was not 24 k gold, which it probably wasn’t. Other metals in the mixture are less dense, and could make it lighter. 9K gold is on the very low end of the scale. It costs $14.26 for one gram as of the writing of this. In contrast, one gram of 24 K gold is $38.03. The value of Indy's prize would become much less impressive. 11 grams per cubic cm is about the specific gravity of 9 K gold. Even assuming all that, the idol would still weigh would still be 16,929 grams, or 37 lb gold. A significant price, but also still a significant weight.

The most likely explanation is that the idol is either hollow or gold plated. I've heard that the idol is supposed to be 3 lbs. Going off of that, we can work backwards to see how that could be possible. For comparison, 3 lb of solid 24 k gold would be about 70 cubic cm about a 4 by 4 cube. If the idol was supposedly 3 lbs, or 1360.78 grams, the specific gravity would be 0.188. Considering how thin the layer of could could me, I will not factor that in, and instead look for a material that has a specific gravity close to that. A good match is balsa wood, a very soft wood. The specific gravity of balsa wood is about 0.13. Going off of these measurements, it is probable that the idol is merely a gold plated wood carving.

While there was a probable explanation in Raiders of the Lost Arc, In Night at Museum We see the formation of the solid gold tablet. The golden tablet of the Pharaoh Akhmenrah is even larger than the idol. However, not only do they carry and hold it out no problem, but even a kid runs around with it without hindrance. It looks to be about 30 by 20 by 3 cm, or 1,800 cubic cm. A solid gold tablet of this size would weigh about 76.5 lb. There is no way they were all able to hold that thing up Simba style.

There are other ways Hollywood has issues with density. Another common one is lava. Lava has a density of 3100 kg/m3, in addition to being quite viscous. In Lord of the Rings the finale has gollum sink into the lava, however unless we assume his bony is much more dense than an average human, this is unlikely. The average human density is about 1010 kg/ m3. Lava is often shown as red, glowing water, but water has a density of 1000 kg/m3. We can float in water, with some effort, and we would absolutely float in a substance 3 times as dense. Another way to check this is too look at the specific gravity of lava, which is 3.1. Since this is just the density of lava over the density of water, we know that that means is is 3 times as dense. Although less theatrical, Sam would probably have gotten a kick watching gollum writhe in agony as he burned up on the top of the lava.

Lastly, Independence Day has a particularity horrible physics fail. Where the alien ships are approaching, we hear this:

COMMANDING OFFICER

               “We estimate it has a diameter of
                over five hundred and fifty
                kilometers and a mass roughly one

fourth the size of our moon.”

This sounds very impressive and intimidating. Those are both huge numbers. One thing we fail to realize, is the sheer scale of planetary bodies. The moon may be smaller than the earth, but it is still enormous. The ship is only 15 miles in diameter, and mostly hollow. It is even flattened, not a true sphere. The moon has a diameter of 3500 km, over six times the size of the ship. Its mass is 8 x 10¹⁹ tons. When taking into account the diameter, we can calculate that the specific gravity would be 3.34 (which matches with the previous topic of lava being 3, since lava is essentially heated rock). A fourth the mass of the moon would be 2 x 10¹⁹ tons. Trying to fit that in 550 km would result in a density of (2 x 10¹⁹) /50 km, or 1.81436947999999992e+26 grams/5e+6 cm, which is 212 g/cubic cm. ( I used a separate source to find the final density, since the numbers got so big.) In contrast, the earth's density is about 5.5 g/cubic cm, and we hold our own atmosphere. The densest metal know to man is Osmium, which is only 22.59 g/ cubic cm. Factoring in that the ship was mostly hallow, it would be even more dense than these calculations,. If we believe the movie, the aliens must have built Some crazy super dense substance, possibly to be a shield against equally intense power blasts from the enemy. I shudder to think how strong their weapons must be.

 Hollywood can be lazy sometimes, and phone in the science. Thankfully, it almost always results in some funny realizations when you think it out. Like crazy intense alien arms races, and Indianna Jones risking his life for a wooden statue.

Outline for the Second Term Paper

Gold appears in many movies. It is shiny and valuable, and is the number one material choice for old civilizations making weird things to leave behind. However, gold is quite heavy. One gold brick weighs almost 30 pounds. In movies, the issue of the density of gold in rarely addressed, and people regularly carry very large amounts of gold with little to no inconveniences. Here are some of the worst examples.

Night at Museum has a solid gold tablet. The golden tablet of the Pharaoh Akhmenrah is supposed to be 24 caret gold. This would be very heavy, but even a kid runs around with it no problem.

The Mummy, the old 1999 movie, has the book of the dead. It is carried for a significant amount of time and the weight is not addressed.

Raiders of the Lost Arc the idol would weight more than sand, but Indy thinks this is a good comparison and when he picks it up it seems quite light.

I could also expand this to be about density in general, and talk about movies where they are under water and ice sinks, in Lord of the Rings where column sinks in lava even though it is more dense then him, the part in Independence Day where the alien ship is "550 kilometers in diameter and In terms of mass, it's a quarter the size of the moon," which would mean the ship is crazy dense, especially because when we look at the sip it is mostly hollow,  and how the bagged fish in the end of Finding Nemo don't sink into the ocean even though the water in their bags is also salt water.

Reverse Video Reference

We had to recreate reference based on pre-made animations

Stop Motion Animation of Falling

I decided to to a stop motion animation based on fruit ninja. To make this I first set up my camera so I would know what my frame was. I made a tall stand out of books, and attached my phone. I used the iPhone app stop motion recorder. Next, I taped off the edges of my frame just of of the shot, and marked out guides I could use to figure out placement. To the right I drew out the odd rule, and on the top I marked out even spacing. When I was animating, I put the fruit in the cross-sections to create parabolas. For the berries, I had cut up ones I could substitute in. Lastly, I made some graphics to overlay in Photoshop, and added music.

Ice 9

The Incredibles is an examination of common superhero tropes as would apply to real people. The film focuses on the Parr family, but in this paper I will draw attention to their friend: Lucius Best aka Frozone. By looking closely at Frozone's power in the movie The Incredibles, one can learn more about the world the film is based in, as well as discover some secondary powers he possesses and how he freezes ice.

If you look Frozone up, more often that not his super powers will be listed as 'ice powers.” That, however, is extremely vague and does not cover the wide variety of special precision he is able to achieve. Frozone's powers revolve more around heat, than water. While it is true that he can gather moisture from the air to turn into ice, his more impressive skill is the precise control of heat. In addition to controlling ice, Frozone has precise control over how the ice is formed. That is his true 'superpower.' The first area of control is through his basic ice forming, We can see that Frozone must take the heat out of existing water molecules and releases a freeze blast that turns the whole thing into soft powdery snow. It is the exact consistency needed so he and Dash do not get hurt. He has the ability to make any type of ice he wants. This shows his mastery over the suction of heat from water. Not only does he change the water, but can also direct how much of the heat he wants to extract. Almost all of it, making structurally sound strong ice, such as when he was trying to build a wall in front of the omnidroid? Or only enough to change it to snow, such as when the huge wave of water was about the crush him and Dash in the finale. A simple example of his control is his favorite mode of transportation: ice sliding on a ramp. The speed and body movements he makes are similar to ice skating. That would make sense, because he is using a similar method to transport himself. By using his precise control of heat to leave a tin layer of water on top of the ice ramp he creates, he is able to glide on top like an ice skater, achieving speed and grace. And lastly, he has such precise control of his ice, that he was able to encase people in ice without damaging them. In the last scene of the attempted risque, he and Mr. Incredible are stopped by the police in the jewelry store. The get away when Frozone releases an ice blast that encases the policemen, but he is specific enough that the men were still alive, and presumably with little of no nerve dame, frost bite, or other injury from the ice. Frozone's skill at manipulating the exact temperature of the ice he makes is what makes him special.

How does he do that though? How does he chill the ice? Through looking at the evidence, it is clear that he uses a version of the mythical Ice 9. There are many ways the film makes could have given him this ability, but Pixar has decided to lead a trail of breadcrumbs that lead to the conclusion of super ice. A form of intensely cold ice that can almost instantly freeze anything it touches. In the film, he is able to freeze ice regardless of if the water present is water that he has gathered and formed, as seen in the scene where he freezes a wave and where he freezes dash's spit. In both situations, it is clear that Frozone shoots out a white dust from his hands. It is clear that that is not extra water, the spit ice sculpture had no extraneous pieces that were obviously added. We can conclude that Frozone does not freeze water by adding regular ice to it, and hoping that it cools down. He is directly manipulation heat. Based on the look of the stuff shooting out of his hands, is is clear that he creates a super cold form of ice that he blasts out, and upon touching other water freezes them to the point he needs. This could be a more realistic version of Kurt Vonnegut's Ice 9, which froze any water it touched instantly and turned that into ice 9, and etc. Frozon's Ice 9 is more realistic, mearly being a piece of super cold ice that can suck the heat out of other other water, bring the temperature of the water down and the temperature of the small amount of Ice 9 up, resulting an a patch of ice with seemingly no more mass than it started with. However, even the formation of the super ice would require all that heat to go somewhere, and that is never addressed in the movie. In the next paragraph I will go into that issue with more depth.

This film cannot take place on earth,There are a few things that tip this off, and although they are small they are by no means insignificant. The first one is related to the content of our atmosphere. We have 78% Nitrogen, 21% oxygen, a few other things, and only about 2 to 3% of it is water vapor. In the fire rescue scene, Frozone bemoans the dry air, and says he has run out of ice. Mr. Incredible's comment lets us know his usual source of water, the moisture in the air. While this could be believable, the structures Frozone creates, particularly in the finale, make it seem impossible. On earth we do not have that much water vapor readily available. However, if this took place on another planet, It is quite possible that their atmosphere is made up of a larger percentage of water. An alternate interpretation could be that he can spontaneous generate more water if he has a seed to build off of, but a different plant would also make sense with the next point. In a previous point we discussed his ability to remove heat from water to turn in into ice. This is a very efficient method of achieve the desired ''ice powers look.” However, the amount of heat he would need to disperse, particularly in large bodies of water such as the wave he turns into slush, is a lot and all of that heat needs to be displaced somewhere. Most of the water he deals with is presumably about room temperate, and that means they have a long way to go until they freeze; unless the planet (and by extension the people who live there) have a generally colder temperature. In conjunction, the atmospheric pressure of the planet could be lower, increasing the possible freezing point of water there. Going back to the spit example, the water that Frozone freezes was most likely heated by Dash's mouth, but Frozone instantly sucked all the heat out. This is odd, because all that extra heat would need to be dissipated, but it is never mentioned as an issue. When they are discussing freezing the fire in the secret first rescue, they never mention excess heat runoff as a potential problem if he was to use his powers. If the planet were colder and less pressurized, the water could consistently be closer to a freezing temperature. Not enough to make a difference, but enough to ease the suction and release of heat energy. The two points combined paint a picture of a damp and chilly planet. It could have other differences to our earth, perhaps differences that would make it easier for other superheros to have emerged, but without focusing on anyone else's powers this is the picture that is painted.

Frozone has access to a large host of ice and heat related abilities, and through more training could probably master the axillary skills to the point of being able to take over the world. His skill with heat energy could turn the heat itself into a weapon, sucking heat out of water and converting it to an energy. His delicate craftsmanship of heat could lead to many creative ways of defiting villans, extorting politicians, or holding cities ransom., The huge amount of water readily available in the rivers and lakes close to populous cities would allow him to take things as far as his imagination could. Thankfully, so far in the film he sticks to here business. The world is lucky Lucius Best is such a chill guy.  

Outline of the First Term Paper

Introduction

A. Animated Feature Film- The Incredibles

B. Thesis- By looking closely at Frozone's power in the movie The Incredibles, one can learn more about the world the film is based in, as well as discover some secondary powers he possesses.

Body Paragraphs

1. By looking at the various times he uses his powers, we can conclude secondary powers Frozone has.
   -In order to form ice, Frozone must take the heat out of existing water molecules and displace the heat elsewhere. In the final battle he is able to slide on the ice. so he freezes it and re-melts the top to be able.
   -The mere formation of ice isn't the only skill, because when Dash spits water at him he merely freezes the existing water, not add to its mass.
   -His last power is the ability to carefully craft ice around a person so they do not freeze quickly enough o get nerve damage.
2. There are also certain characteristics to the ice he makes
   -It also continues to spread a bit after the 'freeze beam' is taken off it, as shown in the end when Frozone saves Dash from the fire.
   -when he creates large amounts of ice, the pattern is similar to when frost spreads on glass. A good example of that is when Frozone freezes the ground so the omnidroid will slip on it. It spiderwebs out from a central location.
   -he is also able to change the consistency of the ice he creates. In the final battle a giant wave is about to crush him and Dash, he releases a freeze blast that turns the whole thing into soft powdery snow.
3. This film cannot take place on earth
   -he needs to draw water from the atmosphere (specified in the beginning) but there is not a large enough concentration of water in the atmosphere to support the large structures he creates in the finale.
   -A generally colder planet would help with the need to disperse heat mentioned in the previous point.

Conclusion

Frozone has access to a large host of ice and heat related abilities, and through more training could probably master the axillary skills to the point of being able to take over the world. The huge amount of water readily available in the rivers and lakes close to populous cities would allow him to take any city hostage.  

Video Analysis of Path of Action

Tracker video analysis of falling

Shooting Video Reference

Mini-Portfoli

Hi my name is Faranak. I'm a fourth year animation/illustration student at SJSU. I plan on specializing in 3D animation. Im currently taking ani 115 and 128b. I've taken ani classes from 12-115. When I graduate I would like to work in TV, or a small studio. I like the culture of smaller studio and I like that you have more of an opportunity to try working in different areas. I also enjoy taking the spatial arts classes here on campus. I've taken glassblowing for about 3 years and I'm currently in the small metals, casting class.

The First Post

Here is my first post for sjsu's physics of animation course