Creating Stereoscopic 3D Images

Here are three stereoscopic 3D images I created:

My still life

Photo with myself inside

Student Housing- San Jose State University

It is an interesting assignment to do! I enjoyed making my photos into 3D effects.

Recreating Cameras and Lights in Maya

Original photo:

My maya scene:

Rotates 45 degrees:

Original photo 2:

My maya scene:

Rotates 45 degrees:

Lighting is more challenging and complicated than I think, but I did my best for this project. I also did two of the photos to get more practice....It really takes time.

Building a Scene in Maya with Bonus Points: Lighting your scene

Here is the maya scene I created:

[Extra Credit] I also made three lighting scenes of this one:

One Point

Two Point

Three Point

Third Term Paper: Special Effects in Animation and Live-Action

My first two term paper scores were 80 and 90; I will not be writing a third term paper.

Outline of the Third Term Paper

Special Effect: large scale of a small objects or animals in the films.

Introduction

l   In most monsters movies, monsters are shown in a large scale to represent the fear of overwhelming.

l   To create this special effect, film makers need to build up equipment and tricks when they are film the movie.

l   In order to explain how film makers to make characters large and scary, here are the two example live-action films:

n   Godzilla (1954)

n   Pacific Rim (2013)

Godzilla (1954)

l   Scene: Godzilla walks through the city, and destroy all the buildings.

l   As the first Godzilla film, Japanese company Tomoyuki Tanaka uses hand-crafted objects and low camera angle to make the monster looks huge.

n   The monster of this film, Godzilla, is actually a human in a robber suit.

n   But all buildings are small hand-crafted models, so when adult-sized Godzilla walks in the fake “mini-city,” it looks really huge.

n   The cameraman also uses lots of low-angle shots to make Godzilla look scary.

Pacific Rim (2013)

l   Scene: When the Becket brothers controls their Jaeger to fight against the monster at the beginning of the film.

l   Since Pacific Rim is filmed in recent years, the director has more freedom and technology to build up special effects.

l   Mostly done with the computer simulation (CGI)

n   In “Pacific Rim,” the fighting between Kaiju (monsters) and robots is done by three-dimensional animation during the post-production.

n   However, the director still build real pilot seat simulator (the head of Jeager) and put the actors inside. The pilot seat will physically shake so the actors will feel more intensive inside than they are surrounded by green screens (digital/visual backlot)

Conclusion

l   To create large scale objects, hand-crafted objects and camera angle ticks are needed.

l   Although CGI supports films to create giant characters, directors still need to establish some scenes or models as references.

l   This special effect is more complicated and needs more tricks and time to make it real. 

Stop-Motion Character Animation

Here is the stop motion animation:




I worked with Edie and Olivia, and we had an amazing time together!

↑Here is how we worked.

Edie and I placed the characters and Olivia directed us where to put them in appropriate positions. We used chopsticks and pasted them behind each characters so the characters can "jump" in the air. It is challenge when we have multiple objects doing actions at the same time, but we made it works. After we shot all the photos, we used Photoshop to move chopsticks and hands out. We also changed color temperature for some frames if they are so different than others. Then, we put all the photos in flash, the film is done.

This is my first time to do a stop motion animation this long. The only 36 seconds kept us two days for shooting and editing. Yet, I really have good time with my friends. Together, we solve problems, work, and think interesting ideas. It is fun to work in groups at this time.

Second Term Paper: Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

        Thanks to the development of technology, computer animation has become a new stage to animation and films. Special effects, such as exaggerated powers and supranational fights, increase the entertainment of films. However, to get interesting effects in both live-action and animation world, the rules of real physics are pushed so far that turns unreal. In other words, physic of the films turns to be more dream-like, or idealistic to entertain people. As an example, Newton’s third law is often changed in the film.

In the reality, Newton’s third law describes the relationship between two objects and the forces acting upon them. According to the lectures from Phys 123 class, when an object exerts a force onto another one, the second object will simultaneously give a reacted force which is equal in magnitude and has opposite direction to the first object. It is why the balloon can rise to the sky, and why the Earth rotates around the Sun. Although action and reaction are the basic in the real world, they often get ignored or changed in action films. To really explain how action and reaction is different in the film world, we will look at the following three films: Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Kung Fu Panda: The Secret of Masters, and Iron Man 3.

The first example, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, an action comedy film directed by Doug Liman, contains an obvious mistake in Newton’s third law of physics. The film focuses on a hit man couple and how they deal with their love when they realize they are lying to each other. Fighting from a modern building to their own house, the conflict develops into firearms war to kill each other before their identities exposed. Jane Smith decides to shoot her husband with her shotgun, but her husband escapes. This classic couple “quarrel” scene actually ignores one of action and reaction effects, which is recoil of the gun. Based on Newton’s third law, recoil is the backward momentum of a gun to balance the forward force of the shooting bullets. Also, the strength of recoil depends on bullet’s speed and weight of the gun. Recoil not only influences the gun itself, but also transfers to the shooter through the body. Therefore, as powerful weapon as shotgun, the recoil should be strong enough to force Mrs. Smith moving back or even feeling the pain. According to IMFDB, Internet Movie Firearms Database, the gun holding by Mrs. Smith is an H &K Fabarm shotgun. Here are the fighting scene from the film and a test shooting video for H&K Fabarm in the real world:

Based on the first video shown above, the man responses to the recoil when he pulls the trigger. His upper body moves back, and he even scream “Aw!” to show his pain caused by the recoil. Compared with this man, nevertheless, Jane Smith does not either move back or feel pain at all in the film. Moreover, she still can strafe John Smith and almost destroy her whole house by using both shotgun and machine gun later. Even the man in the video screams “Aw!” when he pulls the trigger, a slim lady like Jane does not hesitate or slow down her shooting frequency. Therefore, the shooting scene works much smoother and faster since the shooter does not have to stop and release the pain caused by recoil. As a result, even though the physics in this film does not include the recoil from Newton’s third law, it actually helps the director to get compelling of firearms battle in this scene.

In addition, sometime films not only ignore action and reaction rules, they also exaggerate this law too much. One example is from a short film of Kung Fu Panda series, The Secret of the Masters. Directed by a new studio called Duncan, the Kung Fu power in this animation is often increased so much that becomes an impossible case to be seen in reality. In this animation, Master Oogway calls up three young masters, Rhino, Ox and Croc, to beat the evil Cat Sisters. To make this ideal come true, Oogway and three young masters have to pass through mountains and deep cliffs first. Oogway grabs each character’s hand, and throws them into the sky; they become bridges so that Oogway is able to across the cliff. The physic in this scene is very questionable since Master Oogway does not use much strength to throw the three huge animals into an incredible height. Essentially, we all know that turtle is much smaller than rhino, ox and crocodile, so Oogway’s weight must be lighter than the other three. Also, the power from an old turtle, like Master Oogway, is definitely weaker than the others. Thus, it is nonsense to see Master Oogway holding Rhino, Ox, and Croc up in the real world. However, in this scene, he tosses up rhino, ox and croc by just touches their hands gently in few seconds. Without pushing the ground by legs to get a reaction support, three men fly to the height we cannot even calculate out. Even though their weight is much greater than Master Oogway’s, the old man still has his “Kung Fu power” to fight against gravity, and make the young men respect his supernatural, mysterious strength. Therefore, when the audience senses the oddness of Master Oogway’s Kung Fu, the curiosity about his secret power catches our eyes, and develops this character’s image.

Similar to Master Oogway’s power of Kung Fu, there is another example about exaggeration of Newton’s third law in Iron Man 3. In this film, Tony Stark has to face new powerful enemy, Aldrich Killian, who injects a special virus called Extremis and becomes a superhuman. Killian can generate extreme heat to melt Tony Stark’s iron suit. It seems despaired because Stark’s iron man suit cannot fight against with Killian anymore, until Virginia Potts, or Pepper, jumps out. Pepper is also injected with the same virus as Killian, so she earns the power. She jumps into the battle when Killian is trying to destroy Stark. She kicks Killian’s waist with her right foot. Receiving her strength, Killian flies six feet away until he hits the wall behind. At this moment, if we are paying more attention on Pepper instead of the gracious special effects, we will immediately find out that this film made a mistake on this climax scene. Based on Newton’s third law, when Pepper gives a force to Killian by her leg, there is also a reaction force acting on Pepper at the same time. The reaction force is equal in magnitude but opposite in direction with the kicking power; consequently, this backward force will make Pepper’s body move backward. It means Pepper should push the ground by using her left leg to create another force against this reaction effect, so her body will not be unbalanced and fall down. Yet, Pepper does not respond to the reaction at all. After she kicks Killian at least six feet away, Pepper keeps her kicking pose and staying at the same place for a moment. Since the rule of Newton’s third law is changed, this scene is showing how strong Pepper is after she turns into a superhuman. Moreover, it gives the shocked ending to the audience about how Iron Man will develop in the next movie.

From Mr. &Mrs. Smith, Kung Fu Panda: The Secret of Masters, to Iron Man 3, we can see and understand how Newton’s third law is redefined in the film world. Although the rule is changed sometimes in both live-action and animation films, these adjustments or differences support films to develop scenes, characters and story. According to Art Babbitt from Walt Disney Company, “Animation follows the laws of physics—unless it is funnier otherwise.” I believe this quotation can apply to all the CGI movies—science fiction is not wrong to twist the physic facts; it just represents an ideal dream for people and films they made.

Outline of the Second Term Paper

Dream physics and Newton’s Third Law

A.    Introduction

l   In both live-action and animation world, characters usually break the rule of real physics to make people feel entertaining.

l   One of the classic examples is the Newton’s 3^rd Laws: Action/Reaction.

l   To prove how animation accurately adjust the law of Action and Reaction, gives three examples:

n   Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005)

n   Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Masters (2011)

n   Iron Man 3 (2012)

B.     Newton’s Law in Mr. and Mrs. Smith

l   Simple introduction about the story of Mr. and Mrs. Smith

l   Examples of the impossible Action/ Reaction scene—

When Jane Smith uses her shot gun to shoot her husband, recoil of the gun (According to the IMFDB, Internet Movie Firearms Database, the weapon is H&K Fabarm) is disappeared. She does not lean back because of the recoil. 

l   What should be corrected—Showing the real world example (Video). The man who plays same weapon lean back at least 3 inches when he starts shooting. (He actually says "Aw" I think)

l   Effect of this unreal scene – to show Jane’s strength, develop the fight and increase the conflict between the couple.

C.     Newton’s Law in Kung Fu Panda the Secret of the Masters

l   Simple introduction about this short 2D animation film by Duncan Studio

l   Examples of the impossible Action/Reaction scene—

Master Oogway throws Rhino, Ox, and Croc into the sky (at least three feet high), but it seems that he does not use too much strength.

l   What should be corrected—It is just impossible for Oogway to throw three characters who are a lot heavier than himself. To be against with the weight of the young men, he should use a lot more strength.

l   Effect of this unreal scene—it is very impossible but very funny when Master Oogway shows his Kung Fu power.

D.    Newton’s Law in Iron Man 3

l   Simple introduction- summary, what is changed in Iron Man3

l   Examples of the scene—

Pepper kills Killian by just one kick. Killian flies away and high the wall (4-5 feet after him), but Pepper stays where she is- she is not influenced by the reaction.

l   What should be corrected—if the reaction is working, Pepper should be either move backward, or push the ground by her left leg to balance her body. 

l   Effect of this scene—shocked ending. People are saying good and bad things about this scene. Iron Man lost the power, how about the next stage?

E.     Conclusion

l   Newton’s third law is adjusted or ignored by some films so the story can reach to an interesting level.

l   Quote from Art Babbitt, “Animation follows the laws of physics—unless it is funnier otherwise,” and so does live action films.

Reverse Video Reference

Here are the reverse of  the four clips:

Clip A:


Clip B:


Clip C:

Clip D:

Stop Motion Animation of Falling

Here is my stop motion animation. Hope you enjoy!





I started my animation with a white board, markers, a magnet, and a lid from my candy jar. By using the several references I took for our second assignment, I planned the timing first, and then took some shots to see if the timing worked. Afterward, I drew the little man and placed the "ball" on the right spots. I took all photos and put them into Photoshop to erase the unnecessary drawings. Then, I redrew the little man to create this animation.

For the bigger "ball," I used tape to place the lid on the board. 

Although it is challenging to adjust the timing and match the balls and character working together, I enjoyed doing my first stop motion animation. 

First Term Paper: The Laws of Physics in Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

The Law of Physics in Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

           Speaking of the classic, crazy and funny example for the law of physics in Animation universe, Ice Age series stands out in my lists. It is not only because the series carries my childhood memories, but also its story contains unfettered ideas to entertain kids. However, because this animation pushes the story and comedy into such a high stage that the law of physics is broken to match the interesting effect for the audience.

A classic Ice Age film always starts with a short story about a pre-historic squirrel, Scrat, and his crazy mania to acorns. From the first Ice Age film, Scrat is trying to find an ideal place to hide his food and keep it for the whole winter. Yet, he accidently breaks the iceberg, destroys the wall of dam, and influenced the plate motion—don’t blame him on these; he is just following his animal instinct. However, in the third movie, he finally meets a lovely female ancient squirrel, Scratte, in the forest. She is so adorable that Scrat falls in love with her at first sight…until he sees an acorn. The scene of romantic love turns to be a competing fight to judge who is the owner of an acorn. Scrat uses his power and throws the girl away. Seeing Scratte falls off the cliff, he then regrets and jumps out to catch up with Scratte.

Let’s see how Dawn of the Dinosaurs treats the relationship amount distance, velocity and acceleration in this scene. Since the change in distance equals to the time period multiply the difference in velocity, during two squirrels’ falling, animators ignored the gravity to get the comedy effect of the scene. In the law of real physics, the gravitational acceleration is not effected by objects’ weight or size; therefore, the distance between Scrat and Scratte should be getting longer and longer. In other words, they should not meet each other during the fall. When Scrat jumps off the cliff, Scratte has already fallen for a while and has a certain velocity. As a result, since both of them have the same acceleration due to gravity, Scrat’s velocity will never catch up with Scratte’s. However, in the movie, Scrat still reach Scratte and shares the acorn with her in the air. It seems that the girl appreciates Scrat’s effort and empathy, and then she grabs the acorn and flies away. We suddenly understand that Scratte tricks Scrat by the fact that she is actually a fly squirrel. We laugh because this dramatic change, even though the law of physics changes in this scene.

In addition, there is a funny gravity effect happened after the fighting between the acorn owners continues in the middle of the film. The squirrels fall into the oil pit with the acorn during their fight. When they get out from the oil, all of them are surrounded by bobbles, which make them float into the sky. The acorn flow faster and higher than the two squirrels since it has lighter weight, so the two tried to catch the acorn before the other. They stretch and strike the bobbles, push each other away to achieve their goals.

In the real world, both squirrels are too heavy to be carried by bobbles in that small size. In this case, the squirrels are influenced by the two forces: gravity and air buoyancy. Even if the squirrels are not in the bobbles, the bobbles will fall since the buoyancy equal to the weight of the air. Adding the weight of two squirrels, the bobbles should not float up for sure. Yet, because the gravity is not working in this scene, Scratte is able to get higher and higher with her good control of the bobble. On the other hand, when Scrat is falling, he still can push with his head to force the bobble go into the sky. Although the weightlessness breaks the law of physics, Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs brings some hilarious moment by ignoring the law of physics.

During the endless fight between two squirrels, the story of three main characters starts with a conflict. Manny and Ellie finally have their first child, but Manny turns to be too sensitive about his future family. He is careless and loses his attention on two other good friends, Sid and Diego, and gradually they are separated. After Diego’s leave, Sid then finds out three dinosaur’s eggs in an ice cave. He brings the eggs home, and takes good care of them. Soon, three little dinosaurs are born. Sid lives with the dinosaurs, and really thinks he has kids. One day, he brings three dinosaurs to the playground, and the kids then turn the place to be a mass.

In this case, the exaggeration is obvious shown in some action scenes to get an impressive effect. As one of the successful comedy adventure animations, the exaggerated action is everywhere. When the three little dinosaurs are playing with other kids in the playground, their power scares all of the mammals. One of them pushes the swing forward a few feet, but he makes the incredible path of action and throws the kid on the swing into the sky. The pre-historic hippo keeps in the air at least 30 seconds, until Manny cautches him. It shows how powerful these little dinosaurs are, but regarding if a little dinosaur has this strong power or not, it is still a question.

Since the film is about dinosaurs and their underground dreamland, this exaggeration of action is often shown for the power of dinosaurs. Another example is the cruelest dinosaur in the underground, “Rudie.” Wherever he goes, the location would be damaged or even destroyed. When Sid meets him in the wild forest, Rudie tramples over the ground and makes a very deep crack. Lava spews out and destroyes the environment, which blocks Sid in the river of lava.

Most of all, the most impossible exaggeration of action in this film is to see Buck screws his waist. I am sure that it is impossible for most of the creature to do an action like how Buck the Madness twisted his body:

The exaggeration of action uses incredible path of action to leave strong impressions onto the audience. Even though the physics is broken by these ancient animals, the audience still can enjoy the interesting effects in Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. This unbelievable action style is what animation can do, but a live action film can hardly reach to.

When I watched the third film of Ice Age series, I just enjoyed with the funny moment and strong action scene of the story. By looking back and carefully analyzing the physics in this animation, the idealistic rules in this film break what I know about physics in the real world. However, it does not mean that this animation go out of the box. The animators of Ice Age knew where to be fantasy and where should be more realistic. As a result, the law of physics in this animation universe loses some truth, but the effect of this idealistic physics brings happiness moments.

Term Paper One Outline: Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

First Term Paper Outline: Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Introduction:

A.      Animation Film: Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)

B.      Summary of the movie- made by Blue Sky Studios, it is the third film of series “Ice Age.”

C.      Thesis: As one of the comedy adventure animation, Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs uses its hyperbolic motion to attract the audience, even though it actually breaks some physics theories.

Body Paragraphs

1.      Positive reaction and the path of action- in the film, animators sometimes overdo the path action; however, it brings interesting effect to catch audience’s attention.

-              (21:21) little dinosaurs “play” with other kids and mass the playground totally.

-              (31:57) Buck screws his waist, which is impossible in the real world.

-              (41:02) when Rudy steps on the ground, magma spew out from the crack to show his power and cruelness.

2.      Funny moment and weightless gravity- Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs  ignored the gravity in some places to get the comedy effect in the story.

-              (02:27) Scrat will never reach Scratte during the fall if the gravity is working- the speed of falling should be the same no matter how heavy the object is.

-              (19:26-20:26) Squirrels are caught by huge bubble; in fact, the air buoyancy is not strong enough to catch both of them (bubble should explore). 

-              (72:10) Scrat and Scratte enjoy their romantic moment, so they stay on the air for a long time and ignored the gravity.

3.      Law of Inertia in the film- in some parts of the film, the law of inertia is misunderstood and magnified by the scene.

-              (13:14) it is impossible for Sid to catch the eggs only if the tree trunk has no friction (so Sid can keep the same speed with the eggs)

-              (21:21) The kids go straight forward when they were actually doing circular motion a moment before.

-              (70:30) when Sid is dropped by the Pterodactyl, he keeps slipping with same direction for a while.

Conclusion

-              Physics sometimes disappears in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

-              However, the film gives the audience a relaxed time and pushes the whole story to fit with its comedy and adventure style. 

Video Analysis of Path of Action

The screenshot of my jump:

Here is the track video:





Here are the two video reference... (I have four in total but these two are suckless)








I tried my best for this assignment...
It teaches me one more lesson besides the path of Action.

"Do exercise everyday."

Tracker Video Analysis of Falling

Here are the video reference and the tracking for Ball Falling:

Plus Reverence:






Special thanks for my friend Eddie! Thank you for borrowing laptop and camera to me so I can finish the homework on time.

Shooting Video Reference

   My video reference and breakdown

Mini Protfolio

   Hello! This is Chi-an Yang. I am a second year student at SJSU, majoring in Animation/Illustration program. I have taken art courses about perspectives, storyboarding, figure drawing and traditional animation. Also, when I was at community college, I had some anatomy and biology classes as well. Right now, I am getting into the area of 3D animation, trying to learn more professional techniques and skills. I am interesting in visual development and storyboarding, but animation is also one of my favorites.

    The first piece is called “The Cube City” from my Ani12 (Light& Optics) class. I spent four days on this piece trying to get the atmosphere and lighting work.

    The second piece is the final for my Ani55 (figure drawing) class. We had to choose an artwork from the professional as a reference to show our knowledge on anatomy. It is done by charcoal on a tonal paper.

   There are some location studies from my personal sketchbook. It is done by markers because I forced myself to solve problems without using erasers or white out. 

   Finally, two videos down below is a brick drop practice and a short animation I did in the traditional animation class. 

First Post

Hi! This is my first Physic class in SJSU... I'm excited to learn more about animation in this class. Hope the blog is working.