Building a Scene in Maya

Special Effects in Animation and Live-Action

My first two term paper scores were 85 and 85; I will not be writing a third term paper.

 here's a speed painting i did from a scene from UP.

Outline for Third Term Paper

INTRO

A.      Recently there has been a lot of Sci Fi movies that involves outer space.

B.      Talk about Upside Down (2012)

C.      Talk about Ender’s Game (2013)

D.      Focus on how they make the special effects of dual gravity

BODY

A.      Movie description of Upside Down (2012)

a.       Movie is about the Romeo and Juliet spin where the two lovers are from different planets.

b.      Gravity in these 2 planets has 3 laws.

c.       Physics is correct but is dependent on how it is a different universe

d.      Different Shots of the anti-gravity in action in this movie

B.      Movie description of Ender’s Game (2013)

a.       Adaptation of the famous children novel.

b.      Many shots in this movie will require anti gravity shots

c.       Different shots in the movie that shows anti gravity

C.      How do they do it?

a.       Source http://vimeo.com/61920024 by Vision Globale, that did the VFX for Upside Down

b.      Source http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lxUIM6bYQo explanation of VFX for Ender’s game 

c.       Green Screen.

d.      Special Effects animation done on certain things like the upside down rain in Upside Down and Only shooting the face, or only keeping the face of the actor and animating the rest of their bodies in CG

e.      Wires where the characters hang from and move to create anti gravity

f.        Various camera set ups, including Milo motion control solution with fixed cameras and tracking software in Upside Down; rotating around the characters in Ender’s Game

g.       Filming two set shots simultaneously in Upside Down

h.      3D compositing of many different things to help show the idea of dual gravity and its effects and Outer Space in Ender’s Game

CONCLUSION

A.      Upside Down Might not be the most correct movie physically. And we can find loopholes in the laws themselves but it is an entertaining movie to watch and to see because of its visual effects

B.      Ender’s Game looks impressive in its special effects efforts to ensure a correct physics in this world and it makes audiences excited to see it

C.      Special Effects can achieve feats of visual to create amazing worlds for audiences.

Stop-Motion Character Animation

This stop motion animation was made together with Jessica Tong and Edric Yamamoto. At first we were thinking of using rubik's cubes and transformers, but it got a little complicated and so we decided to simplify. Ed has his son's shoes and we thought we could use just the shoes to tell a story about a person's life. So we begin to brainstorm about a concept and a story, then we set up our stage. 

 

 we used an app on the ipad called StopMotion and used clamps to attach the ipad to the ladder. The app takes pictures and combines it into a video for us. It also has a playback setting, undo and onion skin - which helped very much. We diffused the hanging lamps with just paper and tape and add another light source to create even lighting.

Edric made platforms for the shoes so they'll be able to pose in different positions while Jessica started planning how to animate the walk. We did the walk in 6 frames per second and 4 frames per second. We have passing positions and contact positions for each one of our walks. we decided to create cycles that blend into each others to show continuity of character and we tried to simulate camera pan by moving the shoes back and forwards.

 We also used tapes to mark where the edges of cameras are. also to mark where the center for the shoes are. to keep track. A mark on a piece of cardboard become a measurement to make sure the shoes are moving at a consistent pace. 

As you can see from the picture, I animated the sneakers and also the heels. we all took part animating step by step and we all took part in planning the story, timing and movement. It was good to work in a group because we can make sure everything was on place. 

of course sometimes there are interruptions.