"Lighting a Scene in Maya"

Unlit:

One-Point Lighting:










Two-Point Lighting:

Three-Point Lighting:
 

"Outline for the Third Term Paper."

Special Effect of Electricity:

Game: Resident Evil 5
Film: Paranorman

       I.            Introduction:
Electricity as a general special effects medium; usually exaggerated very highly because electricity that arcs long distances is an extremely dangerous thing.

    II.            Resident Evil 5 (2006)

a.       -Main character can unlock a weapon that "lobs" electricity bolts as weapons

b.      Successfulness: 

                                                              i.      –Somewhat

                                                            ii.      -while lightning courses in other directions as it arcs out, and the electricity sparks are relatively fast compared to most effects,

                                                          iii.      -most of all you can see a pill shaped "lob" of electricity floating into the enemy; electricity would have to jump very quickly to the enemy

                                                          iv.      Electricity timing kind of just clips through graphics; no feeling of enemy being electrocuted; feeling of coming from the sky as well

                                                            v.      Electricity shoots out in too many directions while arcing out

                                                          vi.      Electricity is difficult to harness as a controlled weapon that would not hit the user

 III.            Paranorman (2011)

a.       Explain Paranorman here (everyone here knows)

Aggie falling apart scene:

b.      –Special Effects Created by:

                                                              i.      Mixture of: 2-D animation, 3-D CG, costuming, stop motion animation, 3-D printing, many hands involved

c.       Successfulness:

                                                              i.      Very appealing scene;

1.      A lot of labor and creativity (hey for this is counts)

                                                            ii.      Unsuccessful:

1.      timing for electricity too slow to be correct

2.      color of electricity generally limited to blue colors; shows yellow

3.      electricity lingers more than it should

Conclusion:

            Electricity is a special effect that’s difficult to manage because in reality it’s a fairly quick visual. For it to be realistically sustained would use a lot of power and be extremely dangerous. However, it does cause audiences to misunderstand the power of electricity being that the most dangerous part about it is generally that you cannot see it. In animated films, though, which is a visual storytelling language, it makes more sense to ‘show’ the audience the electricity in a way so that they understand it. These entertainment pieces strive to do that, and while their depiction of electricity isn't accurate, they get an idea across quite clearly.

"Character Animation"

It seems that the above video comes out squished for whatever reason so I have provided a youtube linked video that hopefully stays the correct aspect ratio.

Youtube Linked Video of the Animation

I worked with Kristi Loo in making this animation. I did the physical animation, we worked together on the staging and planning, and she did the editing and post-production on the film. We decided on two figures that would hopefully have enough contrast and provide character contrast in that manner, and some simple props to stage the idea.

Again, stop motion is incredibly hard and I worry for the bodies of the stop motion animators. I hope they work out a lot to be able to endure the physical toll in animating. I'd like to note, not for grades but for posterity; it was incredibly, incredibly hard to balance clay on dangling fake plants just as well. I felt like that part of the experience is the one I will remember the most about the animation since it caused such hilarious frustration. We ended up holding the clay doll up with toothpicks for the most part.

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction.

Conservation of Mass: Two Movies and a Video Game

      Though physics is one of the most immutable laws of the universe, all kinds of rules and laws are broken for the sake of entertainment. I'll be looking at live action and video game media examples that choose to interpret a specific law of physics in a way that is unrealistic. That is, the law of the conservation of mass. 

     The conservation of mass usually can be subtle in its misuse. Due to our exposure to things in media that include such things as transmogrifying magical things, it's become a generally accepted suspension of disbelief to watch things grow or shrink in size. When this law is broken in a universe that purports to otherwise have a rather realistic physical world, it is interestingly obvious to much of the audience that something in wrong. I will be looking at a few items in the entertainment industry that break this law in an unironic and obvious manner. When the conservation of mass law is violated, it has a tendency to be obvious and raise some brows for the audience even without knowing exactly how it works.

     The video game Resident Evil is a zombie game starting in the year 1996, and was one of the first arcs in the horror genre of videogames. The series takes a lot of liberties with the way explosives and biohazardous weapons are treated, but otherwise characters are subject to a world built on earth that generally conforms with a similar physical situation as earth. In terms of mass, generally the beheading of zombies and destruction of other creatures equals out to the same amount of “stuff” left over on screen as indicators of the same amount of mass then being scattered. There is a willing suspension of disbelief there. There is, however, a point in the series that is glaringly obvious to many people, players or no.

     Using nothing but a biohazard virus, a normal-sized man, Derek Simmons, turns into a literal tyrannosaurus rex. By an estimation of Simmon's height, he is a little over the average height of the men around him, so he could be about a 6'4" height, if generous. The maximum weight for this height is 205lbs. The weight of the fluid added to his body could not be more than 1mL. His pants do not generally disappear when he transforms back, so it can be assumed that they become part of his transformation. The pants would add about 1lb if average. A tyrannosaurus is estimated to be about 9 tons (18,ooolbs) minimally. If we are generous with it, that still weighs eighty-seven times more than what the man probably weighed. 

     Simmons turns into this dinosaur creature with no visual cue of absorbing any matter to grow to this size, but due to the creature's ability to crush cars underfoot and flip buses, it can be deduced that it is meant to have comparative weight to a dinosaur. Later, he turns into a large tarantula creature as well, but he does so by absorbing other bodies, partially accounting for the increase in weight then, but not by much. The most glaring dismissal of this law of physics is that there is no attempt to explain it. This is one way a piece in media can take when dealing with disregarding the conservation of mass law; without alluding to or giving any attempt to explain it. It’s so blatant that it feels like a reliance on the audience’s forgiveness or for the audience to overextend its suspension of disbelief for the physics to be somewhat excusable for the game. Most media at least tries to have a foothold in science nowadays when attempting to sell an idea to audiences; such as the movie in the next example.

     In a famous childhood movie, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, the movie attempts to explain a massive reduction of the size of four normal-sized teens. It uses the explanation that the shrinkage is done by reducing the space between subatomic particles which are taken as "empty space" as explained by the movie. It is of course not as simple as this, but the writers were trying.

     There is not necessarily "empty" space between subatomic particles; as I understand it. It is more that the particles are spread out along these empty spaces as "smears" to cover all these gaps between in varying time. Not only that, depending on what substance it is, the space between particles differs. In gases and in space there's much more room between particles, but in solids, the space between atoms may be as small as atomic particles themselves. 

     If you go with the idea, however, that it was possible to remove all this seemingly empty space to shrink a person, there still remains that the mass is conserved. The mass of the people would have been unchanged, making them extremely dense people at the miniature size that they were shrunk to. Their weight would have remained the same with their mass being the same on earth. Therefore, they would not have been flying around and taking the risk of being whisked up by lawnmowers as in the movie, essentially removing the plot. This is another way that physics has been treated; by taking a cursory understanding of the science of something and attempting to blow it into something else to fit a plot. This is at least a shallow attempt to make the physics of the world a little more believable for the audience.  There is another way to make the world more immersive while having even less realistic physics, however.

     The sci-fi work Star Trek (2009) is something that hinges most heavily on a basis of science and physics and this movie in particular focuses greatly on supernovas and black holes. The mass of objects and how they are affected by black holes is crucial to the plot. What is unknown to both the writers and much of the audience is that black holes are limited directly by their mass.

     At the beginning of the movie, there is a supernova which is stopped by dropping a black hole into it. First of all, the aftermath of a supernovae tend to create black holes, so it is questionable as to how it would reverse an exploding star when the amount of red matter used to do this turns out to be a single drop.

     The black hole creations of the movie circle around this substance called red matter that that turns whatever it touches into a black hole (except its holding container). The movie universe, however, takes the false liberty of assuming a black hole is an endless vacuum not limited by its own mass. Another example of this red substance is when it hits a spacecraft, it turns the spacecraft into a black hole, but that black hole should be limited by its mass... which would be equal to the spacecraft and only be able to suck in things at a radius of the spacecraft. It has been considered that it could be the red matter itself that has the mass necessary to create bigger black holes than the matter it is turning into a black hole, but it isn't really treated in this way in the film by how everyone is able to carry it around with minimal equipment. 

     This disregard for conservation of mass is built up more believably in Star Trek, however. It is built in such a way so that this red matter is more easily overlooked than the shrinking or growing of the two first examples. As stated in the beginning, it tends to be obvious, but Star Trek manages to make it less obvious by how it frames its pseudoscience in its world. The way Star Trek treats the conservation of mass, in this case, is relying on the audience to not be informed enough about its subject matter. The real physicality of black holes and supernovas may not be fully grasped by the audience, so the movie can take advantage of this by framing its story in a believable manner at least. A piece of work can get away enjoyably with violating the laws of physics.

     Generally, the law of the conservation of mass is not usually violated in an obvious manner, but when it is, it can be disorienting for audiences. Lots of laws of physics are bent or ignored for drama or effect, especially suspending the disbelief of the audience realistically. Sometimes, however, even the audience can be tipped off to the lack of realism when done so blatantly or ungracefully as Resident Evil 6. It can detract from a story rather than enhance it. Resident Evil 6 chose to hand-wave the science and depend on the audience to forgive it for its lack of realism, but the audience finds it distractingly obvious. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids starts off with a basis of science and has to ignore the real science in order to be able to go through the plot. Star Trek, however, ignores science even moreso than Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, but it is able to pull off its idea by using certain techniques. It does it by relying on preconceived notions in the audiences mind, using a more immersive story, and by using distracting drama. If that is the case, however, it makes for an entertaining piece of media.  That’s more the point of how to incorrectly use physics, one would think.

Outline for the Second Term Paper

I.            Introduction

a.       Law of Physics: Conservation of Mass

II.            Three Items of Media that Demonstrate lack of Conservation of Mass

a.       Resident Evil 6 (Video Game)

                                                  i.      Man turns into 3 story tall tyrannosaurus with only the amount of mass in his body (enuff said. Just kidding; but it’s horrendous)

b.      Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (Movie)

                                                  i.      Idea is used that what is being removed is the space between atomic particles; allowing shrinkage

                                                ii.      They still would retain their mass, meaning that they would still  be as strong and heavy as they were as normal sized people

c.       Star Trek (2009)

                                                  i.      There is a red matter that can create a black hole that can fix an exploding supernova star

III.            Conclusion

a.       Lots of laws of physics are bent or ignored for drama or effect, especially suspending the disbelief of the audience realistically. Sometimes, however, even the audience can be tipped off to the lack of realism when done so blatantly or ungracefully as Resident Evil. It can detract from a story rather than enhance it.