3D Stereo Photos

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Light Scene in Maya

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Maya Scene

Second Term Paper

SCIENCE FACT OR CINEMATIC FICTION

Physics Law Violated in Animation Features

To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is one of the three laws of motion stated by the physics genius Isaac Newton. This law, commonly known as action and reaction principle or Newton’s Third Law of Motion, can constantly be verified in almost our every everyday life activities and scenarios. Sometimes it is very obvious as in car crashes or other high energy collisions, but sometimes it is very subtle as in walking, jumping or carrying grocery bags. Nevertheless, the law of action and reaction is almost always evident in our day to day activities. The only place you would see this law broken is in the fictional world created for our entertainment and amusement in television and movies. It is not that the filmmakers are unaware of the action and reaction principle, but they rather choose to exaggerate, alter or sometimes eliminate this principle for particular scenes to make that scene more interesting or more fitting in their self-created fictional world. In other words, they are not simply ignoring the science fact for those particular scenes, but they are rather creating a cinematic fiction for purpose of entertainment or to match those scenes with the fictional world they created for the story.

Animation feature from Pixar Studio’s “The Incredibles” could be considered one of the finest examples where Newton’s Third Law of action and reaction is broken in several scenes for the purposes mentioned. The filmmakers have created a world where superheroes exist in abundance, so there is a lot of action involved. But they had to alter the principle of reaction in relation to the action delivered by superheroes or their counter super villains in order to avoid any unnecessary weakness that could be attributed to the super heroes and villains in accordance with the action and reaction principle, which can easily distract the viewers. Some scientific facts are broken to illustrate a super power attributed with the given superhero but some scientific facts can’t be controlled by the superheroes no matter which superpower is attributed with the superhero. I am specifically speaking of the main character Mr. Incredible. There are many scenes involving Mr. Incredible where he just seems to absorb any reaction that has to come after his extraordinary actions, which is fairly impossible no matter how strong and indestructible he is. Few examples from the movie: while saving a cat for an old lady, he pulls out a big tree from the ground with his bare hands but there is no reaction on Mr. Incredible himself considering the amount of force it takes to pull a tree from the ground, and then during his first confrontation with the big four legged artificial intelligence droid, he punches the droid with intensive force that sends the droid flying off miles away, but there is no apparent reaction on Mr. Incredible. But the scenes that stands out the most among all the scenes in violation of Newton’s Third Law of action and principle is when Mr. Incredible learns is trying to penetrate the “lava wall” with sliding doors. He finds and lifts up a big, solid, and way too heavy ancient statue made out of earth ware in order to use it as leverage to open the sliding doors in the “lava wall.” Considering the Newton’s third law of action and reaction principle the force applied to lift the earth ware over his head will exert the same amount of force back onto Mr. Incredible by the lifted object. Since the amount of force required to lift and carry the heavy earth ware is massive, the earth ware will exert same massive amount of force on Mr. Incredible who is walking on a floor. So if the filmmakers decided to follow the scientific facts the ground will break due to the massive reaction force applied in return by the heavy object and Mr. Incredible would be crushed into the ground. But that would have made Mr. Incredible’s biggest superpower, strength, his biggest weakness, which defeats the purpose of the superpowers and superheroes. To avoid this conflict, since superheroes were the main purpose of this animated feature, filmmakers decided to use cinematic fiction instead of Newton’s Third Law of action and reaction principle. To accomplish this they created a fictional world where superheroes actions are exempted from the scientific facts such as action and reaction principle to eliminate any possible weakness that could be attributed to the heroes and also to avoid possible threats being posed by those scientific facts to a potentially exciting and entertaining scene that could be delivered by the superheroes.

Not only action movies are the one breaking these laws, some movies break these laws in rather minor and subtle actions. A perfect example to deliver a contrast to “The Incredibles” is the stop-motion fantasy movie called “Coraline.” In this movie, two fictional worlds are presented to the viewers, a world close to reality where Coraline deals with very realistic parents, neighbours, a friend and his cat. Physics laws are very much intact in this real world. And then there is the fantasy world that could be accessed only through a small door in the living room. This world is specifically created for Coraline and her needs. Since it is a fantasy world, scientific facts are constantly ignored. But there is one occasion in the real world of Coraline where the physics laws are openly broken. I am referring to scene when Coraline meets Mr. Bobinsky. He seems to ignore many scientific facts in his small appearance. He defies gravity, law of inertia and many more. When Coraline has descended from the stairs and is just about to leave Mr. Bobinsky jumps off the staircase and lands over Coraline’s head but doesn’t crouch on landing. According to action reaction principle, jumping is done by pushing downward on the ground by crouching, which is the action. This action causes the ground to push upward on you and releases you in the air, which is the reaction. The second part of a jump is landing, where landing on the ground is the action and the reaction comes in form a crouch to break the fall. Mr. Bobinsky seems to ignore this important action and reaction principle involved in jumping. The filmmakers made an exception for Mr. Bobisky to make him an exceptional character in the real world of Coraline, since he is the only one who can see jumping mice from the fantasy world in the real world, and delivers a message to Coraline from the fantasy world. And also if Mr. Bobinsky followed the scientific facts he probably would’ve hit Coraline’s head from the crouching.

Another animated feature involving exciting and adrenaline filled action scenes is the third installment in “Ice Age” franchise called “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.” But here the scientific facts are hanged with an entirely different approach as compared to “The Incredibles.” In this movie more serious characters, such as Manny, Diego, Mommy T-Rex and Rudy, are mostly the ones following the scientific facts. While other goofy characters filled with high energy, such as Eddie, Crack, Sid and baby dinosaurs, are the ones constantly ignoring the scientific facts. One new character that seems to be the most energy packed character is Buck and he seems to be the one breaking most scientific facts in this animated feature. One scene that stands out the most is when he is telling the story of his encounter with Rudy. In his story he gets swallowed by Rudy but manages to crawl out of its throat into its mouth. He then grabs “the thing that hangs in the back of the mouth” and starts swinging back and forth to build momentum. When he releases “the thing” he flies into Rudy’s teeth, breaks one of the teeth due to the speed of his flight, and finally flies out of Rudy’s mouth. In this case, the filmmakers didn’t completely ignored Newton’s Third Law of action and reaction principle but rather exaggerated the reaction from the swinging action. If they had followed the principle, Buck would hardly reach Rudy’s teeth, let alone breaking one of its teeth. Considering the high number of swings, even if he managed to reach the teeth, it is highly unlikely that he would have enough force to break Rudy’s tooth. Let’s consider he had enough force to break the tooth, the reaction force would be massive enough to hurt the weasel badly or even kill him. In addition to all these reason’s to exaggerate the reaction force, the biggest reason was either the whole story being told by Buck was make believe, since the character seems to be mentally unstable, or it was meant to show an epic escape by a death defying character.

We all see action and reaction principle being obeyed by everybody and everything in our daily lives. What would happen if this principle is either manipulated or broken? We see that happening in the fictional worlds created for television and movies. Not only action and reaction principle but every other scientific fact could be seen being violated in all kinds of movies and television. Yes, it happens because of human curiosity, but it mainly happens because the violation of certain scientific facts result in eye-popping, adrenaline filled, action packed, or dramatic scenes. And sometimes scientific facts are replaced by cinematic fiction because it is better suited for the fictional world created for the specific story. The bottom line is, the real world is boring because of these principles, but when reality is bent and these principles are hanged the result is ultimate entertainment.

Second Term Paper Outline

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction


Chosen Physics Fact:

Newton's Third Law, Action and Reaction Principle.

Definition: To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

A force exerted by one object on second object is the action.

A force exerted by second object back on the first object that is causing the action.

Chosen Movies:

1) The Incredibles.

2) Coraline.

3) Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

Three Chosen Scenes from the movies:

The Incredibles:

Throughout the movie there are various scenes in which it seems like Mr. Incredible absorbs all the reaction. Two scenes that stand out are as follows:

When Mr. Incredible encounters the four-legged droid, he punches the droid so hard that the droid flys off at least a mile away but there is absolutely no reaction on Mr. Incredible.

Also while trying to penetrate the lava wall Mr. Incredible is carrying a rather heavy artifact, which seems so heavy that it must be exerting a reaction force big enough to put a hole in the floor.

Coraline:

Physics laws are very much intact in the movie as long as they are showing the real world. In the other world laws are broken constantly.

But one occasion where physics laws are openly broke in the real world of Coraline is the scene when Coraline meets Mr.Bobinsky. One example is when Mr. B jumps off the stairs and lands above Coraline's head he doesn't seem to crouch enough necessary to break the fall. One the important action reaction principles involved in a jump.

Ice Age 3:

Man y laws of Physics broken in this movie but the one that stands out the most is the one when the one eyed weasel is swinging back and forth inside the dinosaur's mouth. When he let's go of the thing he swings too far away and way too much force to break the dinosaur's tooth. So the reaction of the swing was exaggerated beyond t he realistic facts.

Character Animation

First, I started with simple thumbnails to come up with a suitable idea for this project. Once I finalized my idea, I further developed it in more thumbnails, figuring out the actions of characters and also the composition of the shots. After finishing all the planning for the animation I began with setting up the scenes in various places where I planned to shot my animation. Then I grabbed my camera and started shooting pictures of each and every pose. After I was done with all the shots I ended up with more 700 shots for the entire animation. I was shocked myself. I ended up selecting around 400-500 shots that I decided to use in the animation. I took those pictures into Photoshop to edit myself out of those pictures and other utensils I used to animate the characters. Took me more than I anticipated. When I was finally done with Photoshop I took all the required pictures to Windows Movie Maker and started putting together the animation. I started with tweeking the timing of every motion and when I was happy with the overall timing, I started polishing my animation. And finally I added text for title and credits and then I was done. I hope it turned out fine.

Mid Semeter Survey

This is to certify that I completed the anonymous mid-semester survey for Art/Physics 123 and am requesting the five points of extra credit.

As a student at San Jose State, I understand the university's Academic Integrity Policy (http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/catalog/rec-2083.html).

Reverse Reference

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First Term Paper

Physics in a Feature Film

The movie I choose for this paper is an action movie staring Bruce Willis named "Live free or die hard." This movie is a part of the infamous Die Hard Franchise. Die Hard movies are well know for their stunning and unbelievable action sequences; sometimes literally defying reality and general rules of physics for the purpose of creating unbelievable and stunning effects. Without breaking those rules the scenes would come across less exciting, which defeats the purpose of action movies. In this paper, I would be sharing few of those scenes where rules were broke to create visually stunning and dramatic action scenes.

In this fourth installment of the Die Hard franchise, one highly noticeable bending of rule is that people seem to fall under gravity much slower than they would in reality. During the first action scene when Detective McLain is attempting to escort a cyber criminal, Matthew Farrell, to Federal agents, and is attacked by hired assassins, McLain sends one of the assassin flying off the window by firing at a fire extinguisher near him. The assassin flies of the window but lands on the ground slower than he would have under real world physics rules.

In another scene Ferrell is yet again being escorted by McLain and a Federal agent to Homeland security and encounters those assassins again, but this time assassins are on a helicopter. McLain leads them into a chase and with wisdom runs over a fire hydrant, which initiates a powerful stream of water coming out of the ground with high pressure. The pressure of the water hits one of the assassins on the helicopter, which causes the assassin to lose his balance and fall on a moving car. Once again the assassin falls much slower than he would under valid laws of physics.

In both scenes, the rules were broken to create a dramatic effect, which results in an entertaining action scene. It also slows down a rather fast action scene, which allows the audience to process and articulate what is happening in that scene.

Also in this movie the recoil effect in firing weapons is minimal than usual or doesn’t exist at all; no matter how big the gun but there is no recoil. This is apparent throughout the movie. During the first action scene when McLain and Farrell are attacked in Farrell’s apartment, the hired assassins show up with the biggest guns and they are emptying clips as if rules of physics don’t apply to them. One of the assassins even has .50 caliber long range sniper rifle and he is still firing as if he can absorb the recoil easily.

In another scene when Farrell and McLain are en route to Homeland Security and their position is triangulated by the terrorist who then sends a batch of assassins to eliminate Ferrell. The assassins arrive on a helicopter with biggest and most powerful guns and opens fire on the patrol car carrying Farrell and McLain. This happens near a police road block, which inevitably ends up with exchange of fire between cops and assassins. Every size of gun is involved in this scene but yet no recoil to be seen all around.

The conscious decision to eliminate the recoil effect from this movie’s universe was taken most probably to avoid complex and chaotic action scene. Eliminating recoil provides somewhat stability to a rather unstable and loud action scene.

But there is always exception to every rule. Die Hard universe breaks its own rule of no or minimal recoil in one of the later scenes. When Ferrell and McLain comes to the power plant to stop the terrorists from blowing the plant, McLain runs into a bad guy and they both end up placing their guns to each other’s face and firing at once. They both, of course, dodged the bullets, but there was also some notable recoil shown in that scene. Even though in earlier scenes bigger guns were involved but there was either no or minimal recoil. But in this scene both are firing .45 handguns yet they have much bigger and noticeable recoil, thus, contradicting its own universe’s rules. There are few possible explanations for this conscious decision made by the movie makers. One most appropriate and apparent explanation is that this scene was in slow motion, which would make it hard for them to sell the scene to their audience if there was no recoil.

Another noticeable unrealistic rule that this movie’s universe seem to follow is that impact on or of a vehicle is higher than it should be in a real world setting; vehicles seem to air borne rather easily. While being chased by a helicopter boarded by assassins, McLain and Farrell attempt to dodge them by escaping into a four lane tunnel. But smart cyber terrorists hack into the transportation mainframe and open all the lanes from both sides of the tunnel creating a very good scenario for a multiple head on head collisions, meanwhile also aiming to eliminate Farrell and McLain. This indeed creates a massive chain- reaction of car crashes. One of the accident prone cars air borne and spins out of control, and keeps on spinning for a very long time; longer than it should've in real world. McLain and Ferrell, of course, survive all the deadly car crashes.

Later in the same scene McLain finds the patrol car with several hundred bullet holes, turns on the lights, and drives it into a toll booth at the opening end of the tunnel with approximate speed of thirty five to forty miles per hour. The car leaves the ground and flies into the air to a height more than it could be achieved with the given speed. With the given speed it might be hard to even run over the toll both all together.

The exaggeration of the impact on or of vehicles is yet another example of steps filmmakers take to make movies more entertaining and exciting to their audience, even though they had to defy the rules of a real word in order to achieve that goal. The high impact and exaggerated height achieved by those impacts provide adrenaline along with entertainment to the audience.
In a later action scene the movie makers break another rule of the movie’s own universe. When McLain is yet again being chased, but this time by a fighter jet, and this time he is riding a eighteen wheeler himself. He’s going up on a steep freeway ramp and simultaneously is being bombarded by the fighter jet. One impact almost turns over the eighteen wheeler but McLain manages to bring all the wheels back in contact with the ground, thus defying the rule of exaggerated impact on vehicles. In this case, the impact in less than it should be in the real world, whereas, throughout the movie the impact was always greater on vehicles as compared to the rules of the real world.

Now, why would they make an exception for a rule that is very important to ensure entertainment and adrenaline to audience? It is indeed one of the key rules of almost every action movie. Where it contradicts with the one the movie’s universal rules, it solidifies another movie’s universal but unrealistic rule. That rule being superhuman ability of an ordinary hero, McLain, to overcome all the obstacles to save the day. That scene is the sole example of that rule. His extraordinary abilities overshadow the mere exaggerated impacts on vehicles, the reason why movie makers broke the important rule of the movie’s universe. Few other scenes also affirm the extraordinary strength of very ordinary detective, McLain. When Farrell and McLain are hijacking a car and Farrell deliberately make the air bags come out and McLain rips it out with his bare hands. Also during the first action scene McLain punches through the wall with very less effort. He survives countless falls, a power plant explosion, a fighter jet, extreme chain-reaction car crashes; even he himself is so sure of his invincibility that he shoots the terrorist through his own flesh.

The movie throughout has more rules of its universe that contradict the realistic rules of physics present in the real world. All those rules are set consciously by movie makers to achieve the desired effects to help tell the story in a more exciting and entertaining way. Sometimes they have to make exception for their own rule depending on the various scenarios. Die Hard franchise set the standards for those rules, which are now replicated in modern films of same genre to some extent. This movie broke a lot of real world rules and created it’s own but it mostly stayed true to the realistic world. They represented a real world with real people with real problems rather than presenting an alternative universe as an excuse to break superficial rules of the real world. Even though the movie broke some rules to create breathtaking actions scenes, it mostly kept honest to the rules of the real world that actually are more valuable in this world.

Outline for the first term paper

Choosen Feature Film:

Live free or Die Hard. The movie is a fourth in line from Die Hard franchise, which are known from extraordinary action scenes.

Three simple scientific hypothesis:

1) People fall slower under gravity than in reality.

2) Absolutely no recoil no matter how big the guns are.

3) Impact on/of the vehicles is higher than it should be; they air borne pretty easily.

Scenes in the film confirming the hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1:

1) During the first action scene at Matthews apartment, bad guy falls out of the window after a fire extinguisher explodes on his face but takes a little too much time before he hits the ground.

2) When the fire hydrant is knocked off by a speeding cop car, the force of the water pouring out knocks of the bad guy from the helicopter and again the body takes a little too much time before it crashes to the ground.

Hypothesis 2:

1) During the first action scene, the bad guys have the biggest weapons which they are firing with absolutely no recoil.

2) At the beginning of the helicopter chase scene everybody opens fire from bad guys to cops with smaller to bigger weapons, but absolutely no recoil.

Hypothesis 3:

1) When the good guys are chased into the tunnel and there is a massive chain-reaction of car crashes, cars go air borne in a small tunnel and some spin out of control and keep spinning for a long time.

2) Later in the same scene the hero drives the car into a toll both with maximum speed of 45-50 mph, and the car flies into the with maximum height more than it could be achieved at the given speed and the cars kills the helicopter.

Scene that contradicts one of the hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2 (No recoil):

At the beginning of the power plant action scene, when good guy and bad guy fires gun at each other face to face in slow motion, there is a quite noticeable recoil from much smaller guns than usual guns we see used by bad guys through out the movie without recoil.

Stop Motion Drop Test

So, I took a bottle of Tylenol, cleared up my table, taped some guide lines on the table, mentally calculated the positioning of the Tylenol bottle during the fall, and started taking some pictures and finally put em together in Windows Movie Maker. That's about it. And sorry about the earthquake effect, I wasn't able to fix the camera at such an angle and height above the table.

Video Analysis of Path of Action

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Path of Action

Video Analysis of Fall

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30 Frames per second.

Mini Portfolio

This is my junior year at San Jose State. I transfered here from De Anza College after finishing my lower division classes. So far I've finished Art 28, 50, and 51 at San Jose State and I am taking 112A, B and 55 this semester along with physics of animation. So I have some experience with both hand drawn and 3D animation and understand the importance of the role physics play animation process.

Below are the examples of the animation I've done for my previous classes:

The First Post

Hello everyone,

My name is Syed Hasan Abbas, but I usually go by Hasan. This is my second year at San Jose State and I am majoring ofcourse in Animation/Illustration.